​Alaska, I Love You

​Alaska, you surprise me in so many ways.

Can you allow yourself love and intimacy or can you only love in brief?
There is a tolerance and acceptance of those who venture to be near you in all of your wildness. You need nothing or so it seems.
Yet you do need. You need the warmth of sunshine and nourishment from the rains that feed you.
You are strong and unpredictable, like an unsure lover. Unsure of who is daring to come close. Allowing yourself to be approached, enjoyed, wondered and awed at in all of your wildness.
One never knows when you will become a stampeding mother moose who is protecting her babies, or a gnarly grizzly bearing its teeth deciding whether or not to tear you apart. Or you can be that same grizzly bear who wants to be left alone to fish for salmon to feed her young.
Oh, Alaska, I have been loved well, nurtured in beauty and protected.
I didn't know I wanted you until you approached me with your overwhelming beauty. Then like a great lover I became weak in the knees, your slave, wanting more and more, not able to be satiated. Like a sweet baby at the breast who greedily latches on and gulps down the warm goodness until dazed and full, milk running over its lips as you fall into a satisfied, safe slumber.
Oh, Alaska I love you.