When you’ve lived near the sea
you notice its scent each time
you return from far away.
Fifty miles from home
I’ve caught wind of it.
Once, driving west
across the desert
from Arizona, still a
hundred miles inland and
separated by mountains,
we hit a bank of
salty air thick as fog.
The sky was clear. Stars
appeared one by one.
Their pin pricks lit the faint rose dusk
all around a slender cup of moon.
We lifted our faces to the heady
breeze and traded looks that said,
“We’ll be home soon.”
Copyright © 2007 Barbara W. Klaser
That’s happened to me…I can smell the ocean from a long way away…the smell of home. I have lived in other areas, Barbara, away from the waves, the salty air, the wind…and I have always had to return to a home beside the sea.