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Between the Fields of Then and Now
I’ve stumbled, again, into the prairie that’s more sanctuary
than field: boundary of pine, scrub palm, needlerush;
tessellated sunlight on cordgrass, a tapestry of shadow.
And I’d forgotten the horses—wild, untamable, monochrome:
gray hind, white flank—foraging in the seemingly endless meadow,
switchgrass tousled by the wind. I’ve wandered, now, into tall panic,
surprised myself, as if I never expected to come this far
and can no longer see the forest, only the purple blades
of pickerelweed, unsure how to forge a path back,
or if I even want to. Walking along a dike—residual canals
and weirs exposed by dry weather—I remember that a prairie
is just another kind of floodplain, that this one once was a body of water—
a lake—and still threatens to become one after heavy rainfall
or hurricane, when water won’t drain down the sink. 
Between the Fields of Then and Now
Nostos