Hiraeth (Welsh) a kind of wistfulness for a place that never was, or a homesickness for somewhere you cannot return to, the nostalgia and the grief for the lost places of your past, places that never were.

The color beyond the color,

wistful abstractions,

the ones our bodies know.

Unpronounceable

they echo in our blood

chase us in our dreams

wake us, with the sudden flight of birds.

We used to know the language

of trees, of rocks, of rivers.

We used to read the clouds

and the skin of a snake.

Back when mud was the shape

of a man or a pie,

and night

a land we visited

on bare feet.

jks