Valediction

born among a forest, raised on rain water, fed on sweet nectar's
daffodils in the spring, orange poppies, evergreens
swam naked with red bellied salamanders
watched the creek trickle over rocks of all shapes and sizes
conversed with ferns and mingled with rattlesnakes
climbed the hillside of a mountain made of pine
resided in a house built of the purest redwood
cut and chopped and milled by hands of pioneers and love
listened carefully to the summer sounds of birds, buzzing flies
drank the sunsets, skipped with the bluest skies
walked to a mailbox on an unpaved road barely touched
in a home coinciding with transcendentalism
where something greater than god infiltrates the inside
with principles unchanged, unaltered and unsold
yet such innocence doesn't make a better person
just a being un-prepared for the mechanisms of machines
and there is no coming back stronger, no external wars to win
all wars are within, the walls of our own confinement

~Emily Loren Moss Ferrell