Member Poem

They are at the root of me
as once I was of them,
when as a child I rushed laughing
through their valleys, like a stream.
Indulgent, they looked on, their solid bulk
the silent backdrop of those half-remembered scenes
that crowd the dusty basement of my mind.
Still, I come back to them
to hear their loving whispers
through the leaves of stunted trees
and feel beneath my feet
the old green blanket they unfold for me,
fragrant with that mossy smell, of home.