20 Acres

By Allen Taylor

Allen Taylor returned from Iraq in December 2005. In February 2006, his grandchildren, Dylan and Savannyah, came to live with him and his wife in York Springs, Pa. Allen wrote this poem that month. It was published in the summer 2006 in the Hanover Pa. Poet Laureate's (Dana Sauers) column titled "My Letter To The World" in the Hanover Evening Sun, when Allen was a featured poet at the local book store Readers' Cafe.

My grandson likes to play in the snow.
He doesn’t know I have a book
To write, so he walks
Like Sunday all over this old farm
Chasing the creek, searching
For Lewis or Clark, plops down
To make a body print, tosses handfuls
Of himself in the air like confetti.
I guess I let myself forget
What it was to be three, to be
Concerned with now more than
What could be. I stick to the old white
Fence as if protecting thoughts,
Wait on the future while words
Go neglected. Through the fog and sunlight
I hear “Poppy! Poppy!” but my mind
Has wandered so far and this poem
Has reached its end because even though
There are no tears I’ve run out of metaphors.