Big Bluestem

I got lost in the big bluestem,
higher than my head.

There are more witnesses than we can manage —
and they misread everything —
hammers and nails driving home my mistake.

You need summer still,
and I am starting the fall but —

still hanging on the sun where it gets caught up,
tiny seed stars in the wind and prism cloud —

our skins resist the fade.

We wait and hope it all comes at once —
and then we learn to do the work
and do the work
and do the work —

open the windows,
whatever the weather!

I am giving up on names.
And you, like me, are a maker of myth,
and, like me, let down to find it unreal.

(10.4.18)