The Poem

Between Two Skies, Portales

by Climesia

I arrived with a suitcase,
a passport heavy with goodbyes,
and the quiet fear that my name
might not fit in anyone's mouth.

Portales opened like a small door in the plains
my first soft landing,
my gateway that didn't ask me to be ready,
just let me step through.

Wide sky first, then wind,
then streets that don't hurry,
and campus sidewalks that learn your steps
the way old paths do back home
slowly, faithfully,
as if they've been expecting you.

The people move like the land teaches them:
older faces, calm hands,
farmers with patient seasons in their eyes,
the kind of steadiness
that reminds me of where I come from
that same quiet rhythm
that makes a day feel honest.

And the seasons
I love them most.
Portales gives me all four
without trying to break me for it:
winter that arrives without cruelty,
spring that actually means green,
summer that stretches out like a song,
and fall that knows how to let go.

In this town, sunsets don't whisper
they flare, unapologetic,
as if the horizon is practicing courage.
I watch and think:
maybe that's what home does
not a single place,
but a feeling you carry forward
through every doorway.

And some evenings, walking back from campus,
I hear my two worlds click together
old memories, new laughter
and I understand the town's name differently:

Portales
not just where I live,
but how I arrived:
a portal, too,
opening.