In a classroom neat as a pin
the sixth grade social studies class
discussed serfdom in western Europe.

Young voices decried
the inevitability of life for serfs. They
espoused running away from the manor,

could not conceive of a lack of options. One
young girl asked if a serf girl could marry
the lord, if the lord really loved her.

She had been sold on an idea of
equality. Marrying a serf, I told her,
would be like a farmer marrying

a cow from his herd. The concept
was beyond her. Of that I was glad.

Brown oak leaves underfoot, last year's sodden
reminders that newness always ends. But
not today

while the creek, silent in summer, chortles
about last night's rain, full of spring vigor
far below

the limestone bluff edge where
I stand, chert nodules and fractals
peeking through

springy new undergrowth, broke down
limbs, leaf litter and dark soil.  I came
for morels


but it's too early, too chill yet. Tomorrow's
predicted sun may bring them out. Early
mayapple

sprouts fool me, draw me to admire other
understory plants: trillium, maidenhair fern,
spring beauty,

johnny jump-up and more whose names
I knew once but forgot. I came alone and
I don't need

names. Names mean nothing without
voices and other ears. I love the silence
I bring here.

"Best of luck in future endeavors"
is the cruelest phrase
in the English language.

Again today
I hunted the wily morel, armed
with little knowledge

and dulling eyes.
I sought in vain through gooseberry
thicket, pucker brush,

cedar, tripping
on fox-grape vines, finding only box
tortoises and one sad

reminder of
an autumn pastime: the picked-
over carcass of a young

buck, bones and hide
scattered at the foot of a stately white oak.
I claimed the skull.

On the drive home
I collected six morels from a high bank
roadside. I took

them, leaving
the skull and rack of the buck. Balance
is important.

There’s chaos in suburbia when the school bus
runs only even five minutes early on the second
day of school and parents and children alike
wear mild panic in bright colors like first-day
clothes with hidden tag-ends still scratching the neck.

By year’s end a missed bus will be commonplace, wash-
faded and comfortable, and resignation over just
one more missed opportunity becomes
sweatpants and house-slippers dragging back in to locate
keys and on good days a quick swipe of a comb
before buckling the future into a booster seat and
driving across town to wait impatiently
in the long line of idling cars.