Dear mother and father,
dear mole burrowing through the yard,
dear robin singing in the cottonwood tree,
dear cottonwood fluff drifting through calm,
dear possum living in the woodpile,
dear ants climbing the rose trellis
and ants mounding miniature mountains,
maybe you are cousins, maybe acquaintances,
maybe you are lovers flirting on a sugar spill,
dear cat, mouse marauder from the next door house,
dear raccoon masked for thievery,
dear lawnmower two houses over
spoiling the tranquility of afternoons
as you trim the green world to specifications,
dear cloud shifting substantial fluffiness,
now a snowman, now a galloping horse,
dear neighbor lady scolding kids on her lawn,
dear trips with Dad to the dump,
dear heat oozing from hard dirt streets,
dear laundry drying on the line,
socks, pants, and shirts,
dear unabashed underwear,
dear hollyhocks, dear sunflowers,
dear marginal marigolds repelling rabbits
from the garden of carrots and squash,
dear rhubarb with green elephantine leaves,
how I loved the crunch of your bitter stalks,
dear Great Falls Select beer bottles
picked up from the ditches along route 81 into town,
and sold at the Cattleman’s Bar for two cents each,
dear dungaree pockets heavy with jangling change,
dear print of Custer’s Last Stand in the bar window
with blonde Custer outflanked by a righteous storm,
dear fighter jets from Malmstrom Airforce Base
whip cracking the sky above our prairie town,
dear summer lightning, dear needed rain.
To parents, and all blessed things that provided the house for my being,
the floors, doors, walls, and windows, the height, breadth, depth
and details of my 68 years ago childhood self,
I am homesick now in the camp of age.
I miss you all.