I always miss you–
last fall, back from the mountains
you'd left San Francisco
now I'm going north again
            as you go south.

I sit by a fire at the ocean.
How many times I've
hitchhiked away;
                 the same pack on my back.

Rain patters on the rhododendron
cloud sweeps in from the sea over sand dunes
and stoopt lodgepole pine.

Thinking of the years since we parted.
last week I dreamed of you–
buying a bag of groceries
                 for Hatch.