Look mom, a sunflower!
Dirt mapped the child's face
Making trails to her smile
A balsam root flower
Growing from her fist
Dark clouds claimed the valley below
The girl's mom, frowning the child's
Flower to the ground, "a storm is coming"
A sharp cold breeze turning them around.
I'm breathing my legs up the mountain,
Running like the growing wind
Is blowing through me,
Headed to the mountaintop
When I pass a small girl and her mom,
Headed to the safety of the valley.
They look through me:
I'm the breeze afterall,
Blowing up the trail, invisible and strong.
The storm reaches the peak
We crash, a wave cresting
Sweeping me down Patterson mountain
The storm paints its portrait on the trail
Each raindrop meeting a growing river:
Transformed into a larger picture of itself
My legs like the rain meet the ground,
Faster and faster and suddenly
I'm the balsam flower, discarded, propelled by the strong wind
Swept free by the river
Caught in the storm
Finding new home on the mountain