I Was Going to Call

April, 10^th, 2011

With thoughts of contrition

When a brush of the neck

Revealed a stowaway

From the bike ride home.

An inchworm whom I nearly smooched

Had been clinging to my skin.

When prodded with finger

She froze, still as a stick, bright green

Standing erect in the strength of her stance.

I left my desk

Putting down the phone

Remorse to the pocket

Walked downstairs

Opened the door

Stepped over the cat

To place you on a shrub

Next to the porch.

After a breath you continued climbing,

Searching out the highest point,

Feeling each step out, carefully,

Only to dive again into the sky?

Is that really your life’s work

To jump until you can jump no more

Or ‘til wings sprout

Just before the landing

From persevering insanity?

The next time I plan to make a call

That would dig me deeper,

I will try to climb like you,

Long and harrowing be the journey,

Until at the pinnacle

I cast off all fear

And experience

The rapture of letting go.

The Fields They Flow

March 31^st, 2011

Beyond angles in the eye,

Yonder upon yonder

Past town after dead town

Sprawling city to empty industry

From arctic to tropic

The fields flow so far,

Searching every corner

Every mountain

Every clime to find

The one who would pine

For their endlessness

Of numerous crops

Varieties both common and unique.

More often than not the fields’

Endlessness has matched the search

For its caretaker.

Is the tillage too intense?

Densities too high?

Microbes lacking diversity?

Ubiquitous is their denial,

Yield decreasing after each

Comes, stays, goes.

Extents shrink to scales,

Desiring more and more

The hoe of one concerned

Or the scythe of one interested.

If there be no direction from one who can see

The fields for their unending

Work and promise

Then for a worker for whom to yield

And benefit, a companion unafraid to lay hands

Upon the earth and take what it gives

With all its structure and fertility and stalk

Year after year,

Only needing gentle tending—a harvest,

Desiring a season of bounty.