The day before, when I was nine
and there was everything to do,
I saw dark movement in the grass,
in a pasture riddled with
grasshoppers who rode the blades
like surfer dudes do, when catching the waves.
Overstuffed, humble, working bees hummed in the breeze,
never clinging, but exploring the core of each mystical flower.
Cows sashay in high hoofs.
There’s an elegance in the way
they shoo flies with an ear flick, a hip shift,
a shake or a nod of the neck,
not to mention that tail,
sudden and precise like a painter’s pain.
Wanting to know all, I slipped between
crusted barbed wire slick with rusted rain.
I hop scotched around warm cow pies
towards the white, gritty, salt block on a post.
I bent forward and as I licked that block
I was one with the tongues and who had been there before me.
I saw their eyes watch me kindly as a humming grandmother baking cookies.
The salty taste enlivened
my sweet buds
and left an after taste
for the wild way that could not be sensed from sitting on a distance porch watching,
but must be known
for myself.