Remembering This Place

I climb gingerly through brown thorny dead things, wondering how many more times I can be stuck. Knowing my thighs are bleeding. a pungent scent coaxes me forward. I recognize it not from this visit, but from the ones before. I fall into the angry teeth of another prickly dead bush. Ouch! What was I so compelled to see? I am sorry at this choice as I step on something hard. this bramble land with its sharp thorns that rip and teeth that gnash suddenly opens up into a meadow with tiny renegade strawberries, cheerful yellow un-planted daisies, frothy wispy Queen Anne’s lace, and purple prickly things I find out about the hard way. the sun blinds me in a camera flash way. Feelings I have never had grab my soul. “I think we should buy it,” I tell my husband. I am fearful he will say no. He is not an outside man. I cannot even look at him, I am so afraid of his answer. “I think we should,” he agrees. “Aren’t you glad I talked you into climbing that farm fence?” We both know this land, we have been here many times.