Along the prairie

by Dennis Etzel Jr.

To run, you put on young feet, place your arms
around each hillside as the girl, again,

the spinner in her dress who listens
as butterflies make their way back south, a sign

that summer is over, when school strikes
with its classroom lessons, and the good girl remains

silent, still, but you give her permission to run out
with the library books that take her to another place

where you now are, with the smile you saved
for these fields, with rows of grown-up days-