Our roots entwine
in the black volcanic earth
where vines obscure
and milkweed pods burst,
spitting seeds willy-nilly.
Child no more whose
ancestors faced west,
jumped off like moonstruck
astronauts abandoning
their craft to sail uncharted
space, I, too, see beyond
monotony a rise and fall
of storm and tide. Yet here
where life began, I live on
as long as you who stay,
alive whenever you, my love,
think in spring of me
as green, and on hot August
afternoons, taste me
in sweet bursts of berry.

[First published in Northwest Magazine]