Curled roots with deep dug holds in the dirt,

the dirt and rock

of the place I call home.

This land has twisted itself into every fibre of my being.

Growing up riding

on Dad’s shoulders, hikes through

Awenda and summer nights spent

learning how to imitate a barn owl

“Who cooks for you, who cooks for you, who cooks for you allllll”.

Setting fires, long lazy debates about

log cabin or teepee styles,

an afternoon spent rubbing sticks together

and wishing for sparks.

Butterfly catching

and fishing,

holding snakes and thinking

how cool it is to live in Canada.

Swimming until my parents swore I must be part fish,

doing everything to be on the water.

Put me in a rowboat, a sailboat, a canoe,

I need to be out there.

Laughter ringing through the woods,

recounting tales that made me known as

the storyteller.

Long hilly trails,

tears and sweat under a solo portaged canoe,

the moment when you finally see the water again.

Weeks of my life spent in the wilderness of Temagami.

Months of my life spent on the Island of Beausoleil.

All the years of my life, spent on the rocky, hilly, grassy, sandy, forest filled, sunshine blazing, cold air in the morning country of Canada.

Home.

Now, I wake up in the middle of the night,

to firetrucks raging down the road outside my downtown window.

My tent stays wrapped, buried in my closet, next to my backpack.

Sometimes I wear my hiking boots to school.

My souls cries out for

trees and wide spaces

for sunrises and quiet places.

For rainy afternoons on the back porch with a guitar,

for heart to hearts in a tent in the dark,

for swearing we were about to be eaten by a bear

and actually being woken by a raccoon in the cabin.

For quiet songs by the campfire,

glazed eyes entranced by the dancing flames and crackling leaves.

For moments of feeling small, laying

under the stars.

Talking about the future

or wondering who used to do the same things

long ago.

I can’t feel the earth beneath all this concrete.

The buildings wrap tendrils

around my lungs,

make it hard to breathe deeply;

they make it hard to truly be me.