For Lauren

One photo captured the breadth of that Alaska of hers:
 
A broad, sloping meadow
Wooded at its far end; the distant bay
Framed by a snow-capped range.
 
With it came a remembrance:
The scent of ocean and evergreen
Carried on a well-felt breeze,
As I caught my breath at the top of a hill. 
 
She wrote of bounding from a cluttered van;
Tumbling into the tall grass
Of Seaside Farm’s wide open;
Laughing, somersaulting;
Friends at her side. 
 
My sixteenth summer
Was shaped by island and beach,
Rarely beyond a bicycle ride
From family or town.
 
She’d chosen to tent beneath the midnight sun,
Savoring the far off.
 
She’d return home, though, this time.

© by Joseph Murphy.
Used here with the author's permission.