We grew up here. The soft breezes of summer carry me from our white brick house to this place of solitude. My feet greet the weathered path, making the hollow, tapping sound I so remember. Again I wonder how this hard packed earth can feel like clouds under my feet….but it does. I love the tickle of tall grasses against my bare legs and how the skies match my eyes today. I still marvel at the delicate design of Queen Anne’s Lace as it stands stoic beside red clover. A grasshopper leaps ahead of me, dodging my every step. He has nothing to fear but I cannot resist the urge to pull apart a milkweed. The same silky threads still comfort me. I roll them between my palms and set them free. They dazzle like white satin in sunlight before the greenery embraces them.
My journey curves around a cluster of wild bergamot. I pause to inhale the scent of sweet citrus. Just ahead to the left of the trail I see the large crevice or “crater” as we called it. A place to pretend, when we used to do that. Golden rod bouquets border the path in brilliant yellow. I run my fingers along them as I pass. They seem to be early. Finally I reach the neighbour’s orchard where I once believed swiping a few apples was a major crime. “Run!!”, I remember saying to my brother. He just laughed at me….the way he always did.
nurtured by nature
summer silenced by the fall
some seeds will die young
Written for Haibun Monday
~ dVerse Poets Pub ~
The theme is “Hometown” and I am your host.
Doors open at 3 p.m. EST. Hope to see you there!
mishunderstood 
I love the sensory details, the milkweed and the grass against your legs… and that memory of taking apples from an orchard… yes how big the crimes were at that time (I do remember plums)
Wow, Mish, I love the wonderful description of your field, with the summer breeze in the tall tickly grass, I love ‘My feet greet the weathered path, making the hollow, tapping sound I so remember’ and the different wild flowers. It reminds me of a small patch on part of the playing fields at the back of our council estate. I don’t think we can forget that sense of wonder at nature.
This is one of those poems that had me holding my breath. Lovely 🙂
I liked this sentence with the embracing greenery: “They dazzle like white satin in sunlight before the greenery embraces them.”
I was right there with you! Lovely detailing, and then that very poignant haiku to finish. Sometimes I find haibuns a bit heavy going, but this was beautifully judged.
So beautifully scripted! Thank you for sharing.
I love how your senses awaken your memories…beautiful prose sealed by a fitting haiku.
A wonderful story… I liked the hint of loss in the last line!
Dwight
Again I wonder how this hard packed earth can feel like clouds under my feet… The solid and secure feeling light and free….What a wonderful memory! This whole thing is beautiful!
So beautifully written that I felt like I was there with you. I felt a great familiarity with your hometown and my early growing up years. Thanks for the prompt.
Such a pleasant read! So visual, specially this line: ‘My feet greet the weathered path, making the hollow, tapping sound I so remember’ ….Thanks for this beautiful prompt.
Incredibly vivid, and a delightful read, Mish.
Thank you for the nice prompt. You and I wrote about some things we had in common – grasshoppers, an orchard, and a brother. How sweet it was. 🙂 I didn’t forget the golden rod bouquets.
So vividly remembered – it seems to evoke cries of recognition in all of us. And that haiku really pulls at the heartstrings and makes the preceding memory all the more precious.
the landscape you describe and scenes along the way were so vivid and I love that you could take us on this walk through a special moment in your childhood, so special that it stands out so clearly. very different from where I grew up in but tells me that our childhood memories are so precious. I love the cheeky end of secrets between siblings.
I like your brother yelling “Run!” That feels very real.
Love this. The moment with the grasshopper was so real for me. Nice graphics in this, I could see it all. I held my breath when you let go of the pulled apart milk thisle, so as not to inhale any:) A nice write.
Childhood does have that mythical quality. I’m sure if I could go back to the woods and fields where I spent so much time they would feel quite different (which I could never do because it’s all built up now anyway). I wonder if my children will have the same feelings about growing up in the city when they look back in 30 or 40 years…(K)