I’ve picked rosehips from this same shrub since I could toddle and grab

While I was picking today

I remembered my younger self.

How badly I wanted to leave this place

How bored I was

How I could not be happier to be here now.

I don’t know when I stopped needing novelty and started craving instead the sweetness of doing small things over and over again

Chop wood - Carry water

Shovel snow - Pick fruit

Drive down instead of out.

There’s not much sexy about a one night stand anymore

All I really want are your stories

Where are you from

Tell me everything about the place

I’m yours

I put a white petal from one of the last blooming roses in my mouth

It laid down easy and covered my tongue

I smelled every summer of my life

And it swallowed me whole

A man walked up from the water

And handed me a monarch butterfly

Without a word

From finger to finger

Like we’d planned it

Except we’d never met

He said it was getting beat up by the surf

So he lifted it out

But then realized he didn’t know where to go with it and panicked until he saw me “You look like you’re from here, and might know what to do.” I liked that.

He asked if I was picking pomegranates

In a southern accent

I showed him how to eat a rose hip

Which he’d never had before

But swore they tasted so familiar.

He took a picture of my full basket and me, monarch in hand

Like a family portrait

I cried for a minute when he left us.

I went down to the waters edge

To walk through a flock of tiny Sanderlings

Here for the winter from the Arctic

I set my basket down

To try and film their little legs and the big waves

I looked down to see a surge snatching my basket

Pulling it over and out

I grabbed it in time to save most of the fruit. Spilling a few pounds

Now pretty red bobbers in the foam

I laughed

The gulls laughed back.

I stood and wondered where these waves came from

Where that monarch was going. To no end.

I turned to head home and saw up the shore

A family

A boy squatting - a little girl squealing - a grandmother prodding

A mass of red fruit

That had just washed up in front of them

The father, hands on hips confused

Looked slowly side to side and finally to the sky.