Hopper

Hopper

[to Kristen] 

What is adulthood?

It is many things, but not

knee scrapes, shoe strings,

not paper crown kings,

not stone flinging shot-slings.

And slippery! Hands are troubled to cling 

to objects enduring,

(save, maybe to worrying

for what sunrise could bring.) 

Moreover, it gives so many once-held things

wings,

In pairs!

And dares it to pare 

bonded things

together once weld' 

in rings. 

Others, still, it weds.

No matter how foe-like,

it beds 

them,

No matter how it stings.

[It is when the having of an ordinary joy

becomes a skill,

even an art of the mind]

Joy?

My present joy,

Like a winged grasshopper 

in a July day field.

Hopper,

To you the tall grasses are grossly tall.

I see you leap, span wings, and fall

haphazardly to ground below.

Everything is large to you and up and close.

When the wind blows, it blows;

the sun almost too greatly shines;

the dew drop really glows.

Hopper!

The black bird can snatch you up in a blink!

How fast the link

to life is cut.

Your little life is spent looking, is it not? 

You have a season

to befriend the trees once,

maybe for a mate to hunt

a victory to flaunt,

defy an ought,

But you’ve not 

the reason.

For you, to live is to see- to search

to keep the mouth full- to chirp

into the wind.

I watch from afar,

aware of all the out-about dangers that befall

your kind.

I can not help.

Come I near

your wings’ll span with fear

and you’ll flutter away.

I’ll have to turn my back

til you come back.

(I hope you do.)

You will.

jordan dejonge