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| Good company |
It was the smooth warm stone against my back
at the edge of the goldenrod field.
It was the cold spring that ran through violets
in the grapevined Pennsylania woods.
It was Polansky's barn with haydust
of a hundred years in slants of sunlight.
It was sitting hens that pecked my arm
when I gathered their warm eggs.
It was Polansky's only cow that chased me
when I crossed the daisyed pasture.
It was the squirt of milk against the pail
and turning out the way I am.
It was the shortcut through the aspens
to the swamp where turtles swam.
It was tadpoles squirming in my hands
when I dipped them deep in duckweed.
It was sunstruck heat-thick days
and turning out the way I am.
It was escape from the small, tense house
to hear the quiet country notes
to vibrate to that distant pitch
and turning out the way I am,
turning out to greet you on this land.
—triggered by a pair of lines from John Ashbury's puzzling "The Chateau Hardware"
