1. What must have had a name, though it was penned up and bleated for weeks, for the fattening.
2. When no one yet thought of packing for any journey; all of the house posts still stood upright.
3. When it rained, and mud stained the hems of our clothes brick red.
4. How we sheltered most those plants that had more than one use: salve, decoction, bitter soup.
5. Afternoons, when we fiddled with the knobs of the TV set to watch old black and white movies and people danced with umbrellas in the rain; plantation hands sang sweet, sweet potato pie.
5. When sometimes the cook would take pity and save a plate of scraps.
6. When a woman at the dinner table remarked on the long wait cicadas are subject to— in comparison to the briefness of the ecstatic moment.
7. That is, we are habituated to assume that the longer the length and distance, the more unpleasant the experience.
8. How trees must know true clairvoyance; they are the only ones who ever really talk with each other in a language often dismissed as sighing, rustling, trembling.
9. That need to touch the surface to sense where vibrations visited last.
10. Every time I falter and look for some tether to draw on; for light to materialize in a form I might recognize.