About Sarah

A Hundred Years

Bittersweet homesick memory.
Did I know it would be gone so quickly?
Trees deep-rooted now. Just saplings we planted that damp, annoying, distant shoveling day.
The same creatures, born again and again in this same spot. Living here, in this field, on that mountain. Drinking from the same spring for a hundred years. It is me who came and went, saw and forgot.
The ground is still there.
I wince with soft barefoot step on sharp stones,

remembering the thump of hardened childhood feet over dirt and leaves and grass.
Hefting hay in hot sun, breathing deep the grass-mown smell reminded, like lilacs, only once a year.
Dogs panting under apple trees.
Garden weeds much-resented, tear at fingernails. The easy ones are a relief.
Seeking carefully laid, hidden egg treasures. I knew all their hiding places.
Frozen fingers on old latches, mittens wet with chores, awaiting hot stove heat inside. Need more wood carried.
Face pressed to horse's mane, breathe deep again. The cat tells to me, stories of her itinerant day.
Beloved animals loved and lost... and loved and lost...
I keep all this here, in this spot, in my heart.

Soul of Your Feet

Look down at your feet.
What's between the soles of your feet and the earth?
How much lies between them?
socks, powder, nylon, rubber, more rubber, leather.
carpet, floor, subflooring.
space, stories... how many stories?
basement, concrete, rebar, steel.
dug down scarred, deep excavations
fatigue.

We humans are such funny creatures. We are afraid to be alone and yet afraid of each other. We are afraid of the dark and yet afraid of the sun. We keep ourselves infinitely distracted. Endless noise, endless talking, endless flashing lights. Even in our sleep, the LEDs blink, the phone vibrates, the furnace blows, the clock ticks.

But we are animals too, as wild as any out there.

Why do we keep ourselves caged? And in a hundred-thousand ways: boxes upon boxes of rooms, walls, roofs, steel automobile boxes, cubicles. Jobs, names, clubs, teams. Our bodies wrapped in polyester, hard rubber encases our feet, dark plastic warding off the very sun in our eyes. Our minds must always be gainfully employed, our feelings kept in check, our hair combed, our animal odors doused.

Your toes.

They long for the sand and mud. They remember the soil, the field, the rock, the river. But they were given a job to do instead. So busy balancing you, a long career of tension, constriction, and aching. Sealed up in their shoe-tombs. Aren't your feet a part of you?

You are made of the very same molecules that are in the earth. Not like those molecules. The same molecules. And they long to sing back to the stars they came from. Your breath, your voice, your sight, your senses. They are meant to be.

Wiggle your toes. Remember them.

Shadow Bomb

In flight you never really look up.
When you're on the ground, you look up all the time, especially if you are a chicken. Or a glider pilot.
Hawks circle, up there. Clouds develop promisingly. We both thermal up.

Rooster glances up again and again, head on a swivel. Flicker, hitch, threat, turn of a wing against the sky. For him, a chicken's death glides up there with sudden impact, talons raking. With a throaty warning, the flock freezes instantly, lucky ones already under cover.

I glance around, can't see it. I never see anything.
It's not life-or-death... for me.
Bu the chickens know: you're over there, perched on that tall branch, tension gathered and waiting.
Black crows sound off, screaming, and scatter to the wind.
Cooper's hawk.
I wait by the gate, impatiently. Nothing's happening. Must be alright.

I turn my back to go; behind it you silently choose your moment, sweeping down, a shadow bomb in my peripheral. The flock explodes in discordant calls: petrified amplified confusion, scrambling to huddle. I race back with my own yell, clamoring with them. Where did you go? So fast.

There you are, on the fence post now. I charge, I'm bigger than you. You can't take me on. I am predator too, and those are MY chickens.
You retreat, and I watch you. The cacophony takes much longer to subside: they know how persistent you are.

But I know what it is to circle up there, turning around the sky. I want to be wild too. I want to be you.