The Long Haul

Butter-and-eggs

“I think of the long haul”
says the sparkling jewelweed outside my window,
curling her brilliant orange flowers
into tension-sprung seeds, so sensitive to passing touch.
“Do you feel it on the breeze?”
I feel it on the breeze, a quiet zephyr,
luxuriating across the wide meadow,
heralding icy months not far away.
“We’re in this for the long haul,’
say the hummingbirds, quite relaxed,
zipping from blossom to blossom,
storing up energy to fly,
to fly! across the Gulf to Mexico.
“Think of the long haul,
the wide expanse of time,”
says the barn owl, spotting a wee mouse.
“It’s our time, and guess what?
It’s your time too.”
Late at night, heat lightning explodes,
incandescent over the horizon, without a sound,
reminding us to paint our lives long and wide.
It’s time, it’s our time,
the long haul, long and wide,
you and I.



Annelinde Metzner
Catskill Farm
September 4, 2015

Milkweed for the monarch butterflies

Yarrow and strawberry