Memories of being a child in the Pocono Mountains

 I am the child who ran up mountains.

clutching the lunch my mother made.
When the sun is right above you, she said,
eat your lunch then turn around and head back home.
So I did.

I sat on the sun-warmed, lichen decorated rocks
and ate my lunch while sheep grazed around me.
I picked buttercups and held them under my chin
knowing that they showed that I liked butter
and then headed back home with the sun warming my back.

No matter how often I tried,
I never made it to the top of that mountain.