This poem emerged while taking in the beauty of Strawberry Hot Springs. Leaving Florida was essential to attaining mental health, but I need water; Colorado’s springs have become my ocean. Particularly at Strawberry, I find myself nostalgic about my seaside childhood.
The sweet and sickening bouquet of salt, seaweed and rotting fish,
the only air I’d take into my body for 30 years,
and until I left I didn’t know,
that the rest of the world would smell any different,
it was the warm, moist smell of my birth
of my youth,
I long for, and loathe,
It’s the smell of grief,
of loss — the greatest loss,
it’s the smell of death,
now I know.
JP's Pearls 