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)