Reid@YWP

On September 2 of 2022, I packed three short sleeve shirts, two long sleeve shirts, and four pairs of pants into a backpack and left my house in Sharon, VT, for four months on an intensive expedition semester school: Kroka Expeditions’ L

The pool is open, did you not hear? 

There’s a banner in town advertising it. 

Summer hasn’t yet slipped from my fingertips. 

I almost want to cry 

Color winds its way through souls –  

plant stems, the lick of a warm breeze, snow, flames that flicker high, painted in 

red, the color of roses 

as well as blood, 

When only the stars shine, 

the winds’ whispered rhyme 

echos across the land  

as the sea longs for the moon. 

The magnetic pull 

weaves their fates together, 

The floorboard creaks as I tiptoe to my seat, eager to watch the first time children meet.

A welcoming face smiles in greeting, 

then sets in concentration 

as colorful strands  

cascade down her face –

a painter 

painted in cool colors

that sing of soft sands