Champagne and Maritime Pines

While keeping oneself to one's self,
feelings kept close to the chest,
I close my eyes and take a deep breath
and imagine open fields, windswept.

A breeze blows in from the Mediterranean,
salt-tinged, from a place I've never been.
Carrying scents yet unfamiliar to me
upon wind gusts from a nearby beach.

I'm standing beneath a pink-tawny sky
dyed the colors of Champagne, France.
Looking over panoramic landscapes—
paddock checkered and fence-lined.

The Mistral wind strolls over rolling hillocks
and crosses clover-covered knolls,
causing shamrock leaves to briefly turn over,
a green to silver shimmering in its wake.

This leaves me imagining sea waves
invading a serene mirrored lake
'til inevitably meeting its windbreak
on a distant tree line of tall Maritime Pines.

I notice the ground I'm standing on
is completely covered in four-leaf clovers
so I decide to sit down, cross-legged
and look for three-leaf clovers instead.

What was once keeping me to myself
is now a field of growth within.
Feelings no longer kept close to my chest
but expressed and shared with the wind.