You spent years tilling the soil. Turning it over in scratches and heaps, moving manure. You made ready. There in the black gold you finally lay your precious seeds, then tended them heartily. Water and sunlight and love. When the time came to leave your work to progress on its own, you watched hungrily. Oh, green! Leaves unfurling bright with the promise of plenty. Buds were imminent, you knew, but in your fervor you mistook them for fruit. These small beauties must be left to grow, dear sower. Let them breathe and be. Despite your toil and your time, there is nothing yet to reap. Each season goes slowly. A rhythm only roots can know. A patience to which you now strive. Watch as your care takes hold.

Youth wasn’t wasted on the young, though the body now whines and cries. It would be far too much at once, to exist both wise and lithe.

Deep down my gut rumbled, the thunder resounding through my body up and out in a strident expulsion of air, nearly satisfying, before sputtering out into a meek disturbance. Immediately in the depths again grew a greater grumbling, released of its trappings by the vanguard, creeping up my body then suddenly bursting directly from my gut out my mouth. An emission spectacular and powerful, but not overly forceful. Natural deflation. The best burp.

They’ve got iron clad foundations that all let them off the hook. They met a little dogma and then claimed they wrote the book. The mountain passes change all day: sun and mist and snow. The pikas they don’t hibernate, just putter deep below. If the neighbors’ lights obscure the stars I don’t know what I’ll do. There’s gonna be a full moon soon and I’ve been missing you.

I made a weird camping meal and my stomach is bubbling. You leaned over once when I felt this way, to lift my knee from the bed across my torso. Out came the air and our wild delight. All at once like gusts on a mountaintop, our lungs emptying with laughter as my gut exhaled.