Yawning Being

Any sleepy afternoon,
The smells of dry grass thawing
On the mesa in spring sun,

A lovely funk, a stink dank
But smoldering, a compost
Of last fall, winter, and spring,

Muddy moss and sunny straw,
When the world is not too bad
Within the vicinity,

Neither the human world nor
Any other possible
Violent catastrophe,

Just breezes and repeated
Jet planes passing overhead,
Not too often, not with bombs—

Feels like a scrap of childhood,
Not the childhood that you lived,
Necessarily, not that,

But childhood’s yawning being,
That vacant, rich potential,
Living without quite doing,

Recollection not so much
Episodic as unclenched
Damp, composted, smoldering.