As if it is easy to pack bags and drudge up the hills
follow the revolution of the earth, the length of days.
Not to grow roots, unattached to the pear tree that fills
the air with the scent of sweet blossoms.
The grass is prickly as the snow melts, smells of fields ploughed
by farmers and the mud stoves in kitchen baking bread.
Clouds release like doves into the air, the eagle circles and casts
shelter on the tent with leathery wings.
I shove under the rough tunic my list of pleasures – the scent of pine
gritty hands of women who pull potatoes out of the soil
the noise of crickets like the jarring sex of seasons at the forest’s edge
the golden thrush swooping down for worms.
The body is resolute in every step, I push the shoulders forward
the feet follow, one and then the other.
The battered heart is left with her in the down of the meadow
where the grass so much in haste covers memories.
