There were fields, I remember, of lupine & crown vetch & enormous dandelions,
and a great, glassy lake.
We were walking, singing songs with throats that needed water,
dressed in burlap and barefoot.
I know not where we were going, only that the journey felt endless
the flowers seemed illusory, the lake a mirage

Step by step we lifted aching feet, displacing grasshoppers by the thousands
And then I saw you, standing at the edge of the field,
you, holding a child's hand.
The child, long-haired and also barefoot,
was dirty not from poverty but only play,
and pointed at us eagerly, beaming up at you.

You were tender, moved not slowly, but with intention,
smiled down at the child and squeezed the little hand,
then raised your open gaze toward us.
Your eyes were guileless and strong, simply waiting,
and all the folk songs were forgotten,
the meanings we had so carefully crafted and memorized lost in a moment,
and there was only you, your expectant eyes, your slightest smile.

And the hundreds of miles, crooked and dirty and drenched and sunburned and sore,
the many moons we had walked became one day, and one golden field
and I ran to you, and had no other loves,
for every world disappeared.