I was sitting in traffic when I first heard the German word -
“fernweh” (homesickness for a place you’ve never been)
And then I had a name for it
And I cried, right there in the exhaust and heat,
felt in my bones
For the want of something.
I didn’t know where to find it,
But knew it wasn’t in the strip centers of suburbia,
Was not present, despite all assurances, at my local mall -
with its glaring promises of eternal happiness with just the right purchase.
And so I found myself
As the aspens changed color, on Lime Creek Road
And I drove and drove
until I found myself sitting on a stone
for so long
That I became the landscape.
I dreamed you both into being
While sitting on the shores of the Animas,
Hiking to an abandoned prospecting camp,
And criss-crossing so many mountain streams.
Now the names of mountain peaks roll off your tongues,
Fall means green chiles and summer brings brown bears.
You have eaten wild mushrooms on the Colorado trail
And the snow will always make you feel as if
you are flying.
You have the dirt of this town in the creases of your palms.
My hope is that you will never feel for a place
That has never been.
But instead, when led by your wild and beautiful hearts
toward all of your dreams,
You will know where you are from,
Where the seeds in you were planted.
Trisha Rickey
Durango
