Wresting the darkness from my thoughts,
I release it to the morning shadows
under the fragrant cedar boughs,
dripping with rain and cloud.

Storing up these scents
of honeysuckle and sweet grass,
that fishy watery smell
when the wind is off the cove,
the resinous incense of cedar-

I catalogue them in my book of memory,
tacked down neatly
with those tiny black triangles
that cascade
from the pages of old photo albums.

So when I grow restless with the sea breeze-
its salted scent of sun on my skin-
I will open my book
and release my memories
of hill and hollow.