Aching a Few Days Ago

You can get nostalgic for your own life,
Not one time or place in particular,
Just any memory, recent or old.

This is probably biochemical.
Well. Wild turkeys strut through cow pasture grass,
Poking at this or that. They seem to know

What to choose. Also biochemical.
The edge of the sunlight creeps up the bluff.
Physical, radiant sunset, but not

Nostalgic, hungry, biochemical.
You’ve sat right here so many times before,
So many lonely hours feeling benign,

Not nostalgic then at all. Not your cows,
Not your grassy pasture, certainly not
Your turkeys, your bluff, your sun rise or set,

The light from which Earth has derived it all—
Hunger, everything biochemical.
Nostalgia, like all wants, is physical.