Under the great pine,
there is a deep growth of weeds,
all the way around.
I know they should be trimmed
all the way around.
Such a grand tree deserves
a clear stage.

I look long. Am transported
more than eighty years,
how so long ago I would have known
there was an elfin community
making their lives among that
green tangle, under those
great branches.

A broad leaf shakes and wobbles and
I look hard for a glimpse of rainbow
wing, then bring myself aware.
Tell myself, I really know that
anything moving among the weeds
is a mouse, a chipmunk.
I should know the world as an adult,
of course I should, put the child’s
world away, and I agree.
But the child’s world says “why?”

August, 2022