Endless Lawn XXXI

Here’s one from Erika.

Ful Medames, or Chanterelle

It’s misty, reminiscent of my first West Virginia morning.

Verdant hills seem that they could wrap around me like my mother’s arms once, 

(long before I came here), but I don’t let them get so close.

The breeze blows softly through the open window, causing the drapes to rise and fall in balletic patterns.

With it, it carries the scent of rain-soaked gravel, new growth, and remnants of bonfire.

The trees sway gently from left to right, then left again, I hear the rustle of leaves keeping rhythmic pace to the distant traffic.

It takes me somewhere I haven’t been in a while—reminds me I once would wake instead to the chatter of strangers in the alley, the scent of exhaust; the clamor of capital.

I didn’t love it but it was all I knew.

Sometimes I get this feeling:

I’m in my house, but I feel a long way from home. 

You’re asleep next to me, I turn from the window to face your shoulders, flecked with perfect freckles like nebula,

Your back a distant galaxy, and I a cosmonaut.

You contain all that I wish to see in the world, you are the familiar places and you are the parts unknown.

You are the Appalachian mountains, 

you are Bow Bridge, 

you are Petra, Joub Jannine, Tangiers.

You stir and wrap your arms around me—all at once, I feel connected to the verdant hills, the rain-soaked gravel breeze, the rhythmic sway of the leaves.

For the first time, I allow Appalachia to envelop me completely. 

Ful Medames, or Chanterelle, it is everything all at once.

The home I’d always wanted 

I’m building it here, with you. 

E. Ricchini, August 2023