I’ll not arise and go now

to the Lake Isle of Somewhere Else

because I’m perfectly happy just where I am,

sitting here free of wattles and clay

on a prediluvian stump in the shade

of many cedars, no call for camouflage,

bovines as if curious cousins

grazing the bunchgrass.

It’s mid-May, windless and warm, not long before sunset,

and I’m here for the moment alone,

unable to detect a cricket from a linnet,

an ignorance that extrapolated from sufficiently

might lead to a heightened definition of delight.

O how this waning afternoon does smell

like prairie earth, like honeycomb,

like leaves just moments earlier

rained on. Like white wine,

another portion of which I’ll quietly deplete

before nightfall, before Orion strings his bow,

before this body in a certain

slant of moonlight

begins to glow, then glows.

—William Kloefkorn