Those young days when bare feet touched the ground and how long has that been? how long? laying on the curvature of the earth and listening for it's spinning until surprised by a grasshopper underneath your nose you crosseyed stare at the remarkable creature and watch him spit tobacco. the wind runs across the yard and up your back to ruffle your hair as same as the grass and you know you are all one and the same. you know the grass. you did. do you remember that you knew the grass once and the sweet rustle of the wind moving through? and that you spent a sociable moment with a tobac chewing grasshopper. remember when you could stop that long                laying there on the hump of mother earth, toes digging into the dirt and listen to the secrets of the grass and the wind and share them with a grasshopper?

Those young days when the smell of the blacktop rose up into the air and the thick fat tar forced to the surface by the summer sun blew bubbles and popped like  gum in your sisters mouth how long has that been? hidden in the tall grass of the ditch you soldier yourself lower as the car goes by full of the enemy and you must get to your own side of the line. in those young days your heart would rise in panic with just the slightest imagination and you would run like a young cat in exhileration needing nothing more in the world to be happy but to runrunrun on top of the great ball of the earth and being was enough and fear was just a reminder that you were alive! glorious life! and you didn't believe in god but electricity because that is what traveled through you and into the earth and the grasshopper and the grass and drove the wind and this night it would light the fireflies as they float like stars come home for a little visit like your neighbors boy home from viet nam or your uncle from boston who you loved all the more because you only saw him five times in your life and the electricity would course through your feet later that night as you lay in bed zazooom zazooom zazooom you could feel it rush because your feet were not your feet alone but the worlds or just your particular pair for which to feel the ground beneath you flying by and the electricity ran all the time so why not your feet? they didn't know any better. why stop feeling the most delicious feeling in the world just because it was time for bed?

Those young days hidden in your heart as you sit outside your room in the hall bubbling up again while the here and now seems hazy and you know that you are waiting for someone but don't know who. it might be grandma come to visit or the nurse to take you? And the sun comes in the window and you see it out there on the grass and begin to cry which you do so often these days but no shame now not like then but you do wonder why the silence on this side of the glass makes you so sad and scrape those damn slippers off your feet using the side of the wheelchair and tap the glass click click click over and over in hopes that the grasshopper on the windowsill will just notice you  just once notice you again and tell you back your story of the wind in the grass and your hair and between lines turn his head and spit and then look at you like well it isn't everyday you get to spend a little time with an old friend just sitting in the sunshine. and then you rise up which you have forgotten that you don't know how to do and head for the door right over there  right     over     there   until the fireflies return in a swarm swirling circling around your head in a celebration dance a homecoming spiral dance around your head hurrah the son has come home but you have never been to nam and can't really quite remember where you are returning from but the door opens and the jangling alarm makes you look for the ditch and dive?fall? for cover and look for the line. where is the line to cross to get back home?