The school bus home found me somewhere in the middle
amidst the shuffling of shoes and sundry talk of in-between years.
There was comfort when we moved;
in the ripped vinyl seat, foam exposed;
in the hardened gum, wads of paper milled,
in the hum of wheels stirring the long highway north.
 
Like a fox facing north
not able to catch its prey turning circles in the middle,
I have had much time without direction, my own heart milled.
But yet I stand awake as an investor in those unadorned years
finding myself well-contented and exposed
only feeble without gates to breach a place where the cold air moves.
 
So too I hope, my beloved three will be moved
through an artery of their own, aiming north;
teenage secrets and falsehoods exposed–
not finding hope in the unyielding ground of middle,
but rather in the might that comes from many more upward years.
There they will stand like a mountain range, convinced and unmilled.
 
Oh to join them past the flaxen fields of alfalfa milled
the golden-sided microcosm of life still moving;
to sit next to three times my blood gazing across the years
only catching prey with the indication of north.
my eldest, my youngest, and my one in the middle;
the heat in their bellies surely rising with the shadows of prairie exposed.
 
And the cottony creek, the tress of transcendent clouds; exposed.
They will be tested and trodden–spirits hardened and milled.
They will spin and twist and contort and find themselves a part of the middle–
they will stand for nothing, too tired, too scared, too dizzy to move.
Yet still that yellowed envelope will creak and pull and circle north
delivering them home, year after year.
 
No matter how advanced my years
or weary my body–the excess of bad habits exposed,
my old, sightless eyes will still find the way North
towards youth and God; together milled,
happy with the knowledge that we will keep moving–
even the slow trees will rise away from the middle
 
as will the nest reveal its barren middle;
the airborne youth deciding which way to move.
Grateful like I, for the four wheels of life and the unfastened arms of a house unmilled.

At night

I try and understand

the two coyote voices

back and forth

back and forth

through the boorish grass.

Sometime in the middle of it all

I must have fallen asleep

because I can feel the silken edges of her shirt sleeves

hang into the shared space above my chest

as she draws back the curtains slowly

letting the light soften the things that need allay.

She pulls me towards her grassy smell;

billowy waves of breath promising the delay of rain and feverish skies

for first the lift of dew on her Bluestem body

and yes

some time for me to embrace

her womanliness.

My mother never should have let us play

in the deep woods that spun and twisted behind our house.

Sometimes we wandered for miles

during that time of year

when the grizzlies sauntered from hibernation

sleepily impatient with hunger;

too close to where we collected things–

their fetid slyness heavy and unseen behind the waking evergreens of spring.

Once, I dropped an armful of dead branches

upon hearing the winter-induced intoxication of

the Mountain Queen herself.

She shuffled and heaved the unsteadiness of her trunk forward;

an eager cub followed inoffensively in her prints.

My brother and I left our bodies behind

we ran so hard.

And then other times,

the woods were silent for years.

Even the elegance of a buck tiptoeing on snow-dampened leaves

did nothing to disturb the stillness.

We were often found crouched by the rotted wood of an old corral

investigating petrified prints of worms and shells when our sister came to find us.

My sister was always beautiful when she was coming to find us;

the flush in her cheeks and the tangled urgency to the red weaves of her hair

brought human life into the world our imaginings allowed us to belong.