This Pastoral Landscape I Often Denied
Ode to Northern California

By Georgina Marie Guardado

The hills didn't lie.
They said eventually they’d come for me,
after leaving, failing,
burning out and drying up,
running as fast as I could
to get out.

Clocks pushed forward 11 years,
painted black, oozing out dishonesty
I never saw.
Little white lies blinded me repeatedly

and I still hear them ticking,
I see them shaking, jumping off the floor
signaling over-excitedly the speed in which
days and hours and years
were passing.
The time went.

When it came around again
it grabbed me by the hands,
returning me to this pastoral life
that I used to call death,
a picturesque I never imagined I'd return to,
far away from fluorescent city lights.

But Mother Land called
and I came running.
I came driving through hills,
walking up mountains,
running through time
to find a way back to the lupines.

When I was young I thought
I was allergic to them.
It turns out, I am immune to places
like home -

vatic places like towns with bucolic pear fields
and falling leaves
where fires burn lands and bodies
and homes and still
there is prevalence.

I have learned I shouldn't be asking
for complete satisfaction
of anything.
There is far too much
to continue searching for.

My skeleton paces the dirt in this country
on wide roads where messengers come
in the form of wild geese and kingfishers.

The field today has proven to me
when I remain open,
when I do not do anything but be in the moment,
it will send a hawk to validate the sentiment,
to sing for me
to carry me
to watch over me
and this place
called home.