i'm used to songs singing about
the wide open sky—
fields of golden wheat and
blue, blue roiling seas.
but i live in a place where there are
tall mountains and taller trees,
cities which swallow up the stars
and regurgitate them into the trapped lights
of their buildings.
and i live in a place where the
sky is seen most in grays and silvers,
through slivers and strips.
the wide open sky—
reduced to slits and glimpses of blue,
when there is blue.
the wide open sky—
a symbol of freedom,
trapped,
yet in the clean mountain air,
away from the glimpses of sky,
i am finally, finally free.