A Place Called Mattie

Beguiling – right
from the start...
I knew each contour
and road –
every mountain;
indigo valleys
where moss
and lichen grew
in sweet, damp
abundance.

Purple rivers
that throbbed
with each beat
of her heart,
and the forest
of her hair –
each strand, a path
I knew so well.

As happens
with the passing
of time – details
slip my mind;
the map – creased
and torn – brown
with age, and yet

when a breeze –
wafts zephyrs
on the evening air,
brings that certain
essence of her,
how I long to stray
outside the lines.