Our barefoot summer
ended at the edge
of a mowed field
in August: goldenrod stubs
like freshly sharpened pencils,
hay salted with thistle barbs
& the odd nest of baby
meadow voles orphaned
by the mower’s blade,
pink as erasers.
We learned the hard way:
one quick dash across
the stubble left holes
in our horn-tough feet.
They bled just a little,
but sprouted taproots of pain
under every step
that lasted into September,
when buses the color
of goldenrod bore us
back into waxed hallways
& the squeak of rubber.
This entry was posted Sunday, August 19th, 2007 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Poems & poem-like things and tagged greatest hits. 
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Sent me right back to school – very evocative!
Lovely.
but sprouted taproots of pain
under every step
that lasted into September,
Handsome transition into September, predating the buses. Because for those of us learning the hard way, the sprouts start now.
A very fine poem, Dave.
Oh you poor orphan!
Excellent, Dave. I particularly like the way this calls out to so many senses.
Pretty amazing Dave. I get a hospital, as a waxy floored point of origin, destination too.
Do you say “staub” up in your hills?
Thanks for the comments. I’m surprised this many people are even online on a weekend! I hate to sound too self-deprecating here, but let me just say that if this poem succeeds as well as y’all seem to think, it was not on account of any special inspiration. Just writing to occupy the time and give my mind a workout.
Bill – No, I never heard that. Must be more of an Ozarks thing.
If I were a linguist I might say “staub” was a hill relic of older English before a vowel shift or something like that, but really, I dunno. I googles-up in storytelling in Appalachia, meaning “stab” as in to kill a person. Here I think of it as broken tree limb if a noun, or something between a poke and a stab if a verb, generally with a result of getting perforated. I guess it came here out of Kaintuck. I’ve really come to like the word as it connotes something edgier and more robust than any “stub” I knew in the city. Here, “staples” are “steeples” and I quite glad of it.
Oh and I really like the fight in the title. For a spell, after thinking about phantom root pain, I ran a nonsense headline in my head: “Apprehended Truants Get Suspended Severance”.
Bill – That’s all new information to me; thanks. I hadn’t even thought consciously about the cousinhood between stub and stab until now.
Captures the moment of transition perfectly!
Thanks, Fred.
I really like this one too. The words stab as hard as the stalks, as hard as the sharpened pencils will….
Ouch! Brings back memories
of walking barefoot over stubble.
Very much liked the
buses the colour of goldenrod.
Thanks, bev and Pica. I’m beginning to sort of like this poem myself now.