My Princeton Patch readers know that I restore soul and muse by driving to nature sites, especially in New Jersey and occasionally in nearby states.  

You also know that my poetry muse vanished for a couple of years, coming back 'on the heels of' the hip replacement a year ago, November.

To celebrate recovery, I took myself to the Berkshires the last weekend in October.  Little did I know what Fate had in store, even in that region.  

The Williamstown motel, The Cozy Corner, lowered their rates when it was discovered I could not return to Princeton.  Downed trees en route and powerlessness here had turned me into an unwitting refugee.  

I managed to hike any number of times, even the day of Hurrican Sandy in Willliamstown.  Oddly enough, we were spared.  I was welcomed and tended everywhere, though a stranger.  I relished art in favorite museums.  I woke and slept to mountains.

Now, I find myself bereft without my refuge:

MOUNTAIN SICKNESS

home from the Berkshires, I long

for sustaining peaks and ranges

--slate against lemon sky

waves of chartreuse grasses

surging in pre-storm light

three proprietary crows

rowing like blue herons

in almost-hurricane turbulence

landing on conifers

that barely swayed, despite gales

I require those mountains

day after day birthing clouds

biblical flocks

scurrying to new pastures

those cradling mountains

--boreal refuge

where I had meant to remain

but a handful of days