Please don't go, Dairy Hollow

 Back in 2012 I wrote the following words as I prepared to leave the Writers' Colony and this morning my heart still connects with the sad song of departure with grace and gratitude:

I will follow you back to here, right here where we first met and I will hug you longer than I ever have. As I pack my car with all we have done together--the joy of making poems, the blues of shredding the imperfect ones only to remember memorable lines from them, watching the sunset and then rushing in to write about it. We sat in the dark with the window open listening to the raucous sound of night creatures. I watch you in my rear view mirror as you move away behind me and disappear as I drive around the Spring Street bend just beyond Grotto Springs---