My Footprint

Ten years and over 150,000 miles,
memory has come to me in pairs:

Summer of Arizona,
North Dakota’s winter;
The Pacific at California’s edge,
sunlit beaches of Florida;
The great plains of the heartland,
snow peaks in the Rockies;
Montana towns settling into silence,
Silicon Valley reaching for tomorrow.

Between them,
I have had time to think,
to miss people,
to build a family,
and to grow older, almost without noticing.

I left no lasting mark on these roads.
Still, they hold something of my life:
where I was going,
who I was then.

The states I have touched,
the Interstates that carried me.

And somewhere beyond the miles I know,
more journeys await.