One summer afternoon， I learned my body

    like a blind child leaving a walled

    school for the first time， stumbling

    from cool hallways to a world

    dense with scent and sound，

    pines roaring in the sudden wind

    like a huge chorus of insects.

    I felt the damp socket of flowers，

    touched weeds riding the crest

    of a stony ridge， and the scrubby

    ground cover on low hills.

    Haystacks began to burn，

    smoke rose like sheets of

    translucent mica. The thick air

    hummed over the stretched wires

    of wheat as I lay in the overgrown field

    listening to the shrieks of small rabbits

    bounding beneath my skin.