I must have driven this canyon

a few thousand times in my life

I’ve driven it

too fast when I was a teen

I’ve driven it

in such heavy snow

that I simply straddled

the double yellow line

because it was the only thing

beside the weather

that I could see

I’ve driven it sobbing

or with one of my past loves

I’ve driven it with my family

brought my grandmother

to the mountains

I’ve driven it at dawn

almost every work day for years

came to long for the dawn pastels

over the trees

on the weekends

I’ve driven it alone

with the rock walls

in the middle of the night 

when I have lived in Boulder

I found myself working

in the mountains

and this canyon took me there

when I lived up here

I worked in Boulder

and the canyon took me there

and back up again

maybe home isn’t where we sleep

because we were meant

to wander anyway

maybe home is instead

the places of passage

we frequent 

like these eighteen miles

of granite and green

maybe my home

in riding this road

beside the river

and the trees

which reach all the way

up to the sky