Back from beautiful Jamaica… and I’m not sure how I convinced myself yesterday to get on a plane back to Baltimore after all that sunshine and blue salt water and all the friendly “yeah mon”s… And since I haven’t finished processing it all, I went back to an older poem from an older trip, my cross country trip in 2001.

Pine in Bryce Canyon

Stretched between tall
hoodoos of red sandstone
burning hot beneath summer,
a lone pine stands. Its
roots strong
to the dusty red ground,
and its brown trunk growing
up and up
and its green needles bursting
from their thin branches. It
heaves a light swaying sigh
of being ever green in
all red rock and dust, yet
after all, this pine
still thirsts for blue Utah sky
and gazes up longingly.