“Some Words for the Week”

There are so many places

that I could have been born

slums and cities

so many mother tongues

that could have come from between

my American teeth

in that random dart through

at the board of all possibility

of birth and blessings

I was born below

these rocky mountains

where a storm of buffalo

once mixed the earth and sky

with hoof beat and bellows

I was born to two parents

who moved to a cabin

in the woods

instead of concrete streets

apartment buildings

boarding schools

prison camps

I was raised

between aspen and pine

on dirt roads

and snow dotted air

there are a billion places

I could have lived,

a million ways I could have died

but I find myself this morning

after having left and come back

looking out over the pickup truck

at the snow lit pink

by a spring dawn

and although I’ve never

had any say in the choosing

I breathe in all this rolling forest

and church organ cliffs

and I know in this Colorado heart

all this is mine

and I belong to it

these proud granite effigies

to time and long sunken oceans

these trees thick with decades

and pine beetle script

as the sun comes up

and shines us both gold

I see this home

and smile

Alexander Shalom Joseph is a writer from Gilpin County. He has two published books and one more forthcoming in the Fall of 2022. For more information and to subscribe to Alexander’s Newsletter go to alexandershalomjoseph.com