Horses love to graze and they do it now
in dirty blankets in a muddy field where
snippets of greening grass try to survive
the appetite of those who ate dry hay
all winter. Trailing their noses, seeking
the newest green blades – if they know
that someone will arrive at five to urge
them back to stalls, they don’t care
in this noon sun because of that taste,
first lush of April, free for deliberate taking.
Feel my need: the simplest chance
to touch the spines of hard-back books
sequestered for months in our town library,
my choice to move from hard fact to glancing
at poems women wrote to survive
long weeks inside, even Dickinson, or
kids’ books where monkeys talk,
and ponies wear roller skates.
Where four gray-haired librarians
(why are they all women?) never judge
what I need (even the smut,) don’t care
how much I grab for my bag, never ask
why I pick the book on how to fill lonely
hours. That forgiving date they stamp
on the fly leaf as they mention renewal
and point to hand sanitizer on the exit door.
At home, my exquisite nibble of what is free
for choosing, the tanginess of outside.
Tricia Knoll’s Poetry collections –
- How I Learned to Be White (available on Amazon) received the 2018 Indie Book Award for Motivational Poetry.
- Broadfork Farm – poems about a small organic farm in Trout Lake, Washington, its people and creatures is available on Amazon and from The Poetry Box.
- Ocean’s Laughter, a book of lyric and eco-poetry about Manzanita, Oregon. Look at Amazon.com or for Reviews.
- Urban Wild, a poetry chapbook available from Finishing Line Press that explores interactions of humans and wildlife in urban habitat.
califragile.org 