In my back woods

In my back woods
I was Nature Girl-
naming potato bugs
that I brought to their little desks made out of acorn tops
and pine cone bits
so I could call on them
at my potato bug school

In my back woods
I was seven-happy-and-eight too picking daffodils
swinging on vines
following the creek to the tunnel under the parkway

stopping before the waterfall down to the Potomac
stopping before Sasquatch got you-
or the naked man who they said
ran the woods at night-
or the teenagers who hid their pipes
in the roots of the giant dead over turned tree
in the red clay earth

In my back woods
I was Luke Skywalker
practicing for hours my powers
to make a stick levitate from the earth into my hand
with sheer will power
if I could channel the good side of The Force

(In my back woods
I was never Princess Leah
because my hair wouldn't roll around my head like that
it was too short
I looked more like Luke)

In my back woods
being alone and seeing a deer talk to a squirrel
or a fox sliding on the ice for fun
or the sun lick a red red berry
wasn't magical
it was just what happened there
when I was alone
not encumbered by all the things I know now
that would stop me cold
from venturing alone into the back woods.