On Leaving Alberta

I could feel home calling

closer than she had been in over a year.

I needed no road signs,

no tourist traps

to feel the pull of the sea

that for so long

had been a part of me.

I coughed the prairie dust from my lungs

as flatlands

turned to mountains.

Kicked the mud of the muskeg

from my mukluks 

and kissed the aurora borealis 

goodbye

as her dancing lights faded

in my rear view.

Natasha Head