Once I chewed calamus rhizomes
so my voice would be clear,
able to sing every note,
to survive every pause.
I swallowed the bitterness of saliva,
crushing single fibers
the stalks of the taste of discomfort.
Time does not thank for effort.
Instead, it gives the world of walking barefoot,
raking grass with warm hands,
gathering straight from the earth
what has grown there.
Stacked in even piles,
dry grass has a different scent
on a cloudless day.
Life there was not easy,
but it had the frame
of four seasons,
of many deaths
and threads of new lives,
a world that no longer exists
yet lives in thoughts
gently sliding across my head.