The Memory of the Young

The memory of the young is grasshopper:

thin legs, backwards knees

balance a being that is green,

gold-tinged, that wants to keep singing.

That sings the afternoon rays

serrated, that flecks the sight of wind.

The memory of the young is leap-by-leap.

It sweeps itself for clues to its song.

One day, it says, and it means twenty-three.

Long ago, it says, and it means a week.

Two round eyes look out from it.

It hides and flings itself and hides again.

It is underfoot and in the bushes.

The memory of the young is summer,

summer only, dancing and eating,

eating mightily, biting holes in leaves

to let in sky. Its antennae twitch

and swivel. It could be looking or it could

be listening. The memory of the young

is rarely final on things. Rarely clear.

Nestled under the blades of fields,

in coolest shade, the dirt goes damp

and tender and yields its secret names.

To be young is to know these names

almost better than your own heart,

to hear them rising through crumb

and root, nutrient and trapped rain,

less than a breath, yet greater

than the first sight of the lightning tree,

which is the kind of thing

you remember when you are young,

along with the clap

of the toybox lid over your head,

because you are so small

you can climb inside it. Along with

raisins are wrinkled grapes,

and lake is splash, and dear whistling

laugh is grandmother. That feeling

of being slender and furless. New

and sprung. Fresh-made, stiff-

winged. That fear of shadows.

Of swift change. Of the first sharp pain

when you are plucked and taken,

and dissolve into another,

which is always too soon. The memory

of the young is a glade filled with you

though you are unseen,

your colors combining with the colors

of trees, and every one of you is ravenous,

singing shrill and joyous, as if all is lost

already, to the cost of multitude

and the waiting forest.