Children in the long grass

She likes to watch her children
in the long grass, how they disappear,
emerge, like they’re swimming in
an ocean without current but the one
of growing. See how the long blades
part for them, how they close up
all around, Watch the gold
heads bob, hands reach up for
the sun as if it’s the transportation
of these years. Hear the silence,
the safe silence. And then
the muffled noise rolling through
the shafts, secured forever by the
wrinkled smile of her hearing.
Children are nature’s people now,
but her nature too, the one that
says, play here, will later sigh,
but how could I prevent you.