As I Walk

By August, the weather has delivered those of us in the wide valley to the edge of Hell.  The sun has baked the last clouds from the sky and hot winds have bleached the tall grasses nearly white.  If I were to walk afield, waves of fleeing grasshoppers would swell up at my feet.

To avoid the heat, I walk early.

To avoid the hoppers, I walk the road.

I have been thinking.  I need more time in the cool, moist swales slung between high mountains like green hammocks.  I need a sixth sense to tell me when ghosts are crowding me (as they did Jim Morrison).   I need to be more generous and less easy to rile.  I need to kiss awake the woman with the longest hair. 

These are the things I think as I walk.  These, before midday cars and trucks discover the country roads and race down them, unzipping dust and allowing it to escape in tumbling gray sheets that spread slowly over the curing prairie.

—Mitchell Hegman

For Desiree