Open spaces

I wish I could gift you

Open spaces

You child of the city

Veteran of a thousand skirmishes

On the concrete playground

Heart stoned behind

Pewter eyes

I wish I could give you the sobs

That come in clean

Air when you lungs burn with

The fine, fine victory of

Shuffling footsteps and the not-giving-up

And you look down on the

Wooly backs of tottering

mountain goats

I wish I could give you clean pines

And fresh scat and the scattered blood

Of a real hunt

And a proper ceremony with a fresh heart stilled

And the gratitude of true death

In the right place and time

What I want to say

Is that there is nothing wrong with you

Nothing at all

You were simply compressed, into something smaller than you

True size

By fear and poverty and lies that someone told you

Or your parents

About what you could be

What I want to say is that

You are clean, and filled with

Awe and the stars hang

Dropped in your eyelashes

Like snowflakes

At night and when you see them you will know it to be

True

And this is

What the mountains would tell you if they

Could

If you let them if I gave you

Open spaces