Workshops With Gurney

First
the miles rolled out before me
          and behind me.
Excitement drove me.
Who would I meet?
What would I learn?
Would I return with more
          than I came with.

I was younger
          naïve in many ways
          with no real understanding
of where I was going
          or why.

Hills and valleys
          wide roads then
          narrow ones up and down
to places foreign to me.
But when I saw
a familiar face
I felt at ease.

A little later
          around the table
          with strangers
I realized we spoke the same language.
          Some with a different cadence
          some with a different tone …accent…

I felt alive.

Hours
around that table
led to words strung out
across pages and pages…
          with ideas and images
I never knew I had.

I fell in love.
          I fell in love with
          the place
          the people
          the words
         the ideas
         the dreams.

And I knew
the smells
         the mountains and
he words oh, yes, the words and
          myself.

Years passed and
yet we still came back
to those same trees
those same hills
knowing this time
it would be different. Yet we knew the treasures
we would leave with.

Now
today
years and tears
          later we sit together
          in a different place
with the same hopes
always fueled by the love
          Hazel Green
          showed us.

We change with the seasons
but we never changed
the need to return.

Tony Sexton