I Drive Through

  That place was named Taberah (from to burn) because a fire had broken out against them. 

Numbers 11:3

 

A man walks a field straightened

by young potato greens.  A vagrant 

wind raises dust. My windows

are closed.  How does

he still walk with burning eyes?

 

So small- I had never noticed that house 

where just now a young woman fills the doorway - 

I will never know what she has opened to.

How is it my eyes my throat my skin 

are still burning?

 

Slender bespotted cows 

eat themselves towards change

they can’t imagine in late spring grass -  

the delicious pulls their eyes downward 

and mine up towards them.

 

I ask my body

why am I here,

where are the fruit 

trees I was born to water?

 

The private pine have sent their pollen 

out with abandon, lining my every road. 

I brush it from my skin.  

I’m not yet ready

to become a tree.