Like everyone else, I’m searching for the meadow

of my childhood in family friends’ Facebook photos,

or hanging in galleries in unfamiliar cities. Sometimes

I spot a tree on the side of some random highway

or in a stranger’s front yard & I think yes, yes, I’m close.

Other times it’s even smaller; the curve of one branch

into the space which becomes the sky. The juxtaposition

of those two extraordinary things. It’s occurred to me

that perhaps it’s not the meadow I’m after but the feeling

of vastness, which is, of course, another word

for childhood, the running for the sake of running

& not to escape anything—as if we could run forever

& never reach the edge of our meadow, never reach

where that pavement begins.