Category: Poetry and Other Writing

i miss the woods of my youth
and the enchant­ments con­tained there­in
adven­ture and errantry fight­ing gods
and mon­sters with the self taught
wood­craft of an imag­i­na­tion
gone native

i miss its stream and the
chuck­ling bub­ble of the craw­dads
nip­ping at my bea­gle’s paws
as she raced through the
rasp­ing reeds after anoth­er
elu­sive scent

i miss its dust and moss
the fad­ed lichen and bur­docks
catch­ing and refus­ing to release
the vital youth laugh­ing his way
through the under­growth of
their mem­o­ry

i miss the wood­peck­er’s knock
and the chides of the squir­rel
whose for­ag­ing i rude­ly
inter­rupt­ed while scal­ing
hick­o­ries and sycamores for a
bird­s­eye view

i miss the call of my moth­er
echo­ing across my world and
call­ing me home. i miss ignor­ing
it for a last half hour
of a sum­mer evening’s
intre­pid pos­si­bil­i­ties

i miss com­ing home and strip­ping out­side
to have the mud sprayed off with a hose
a dai­ly bap­tism back into civ­i­liza­tion
a child again until tomor­row and the
next chap­ter in the life of a
grow­ing boy