Ode To Sticks

I love chewing sticks. Mama sometimes worries that I eat too much debris from the yard. Debris... What's debris? It's all good: Pine cones and sweet gum pods... Crunchy brown leaves... And sticks... Mama doesn't seem to know that sticks are the best thing for teething, and if she wants me to lose my sharp little baby teeth and stop biting her hands, she should be thankful for sticks. 

Mama is a poet, besides other things, and if she would just think about sticks like a poet thinks, she would have an idea of what I am getting from chewing sticks. Besides teething... Sticks fall from trees on windy, rainy days. Just imagine the taste of wind and rain. Then mix in the taste of warm sunlight and earth. Let your mind go further to the little bird feet that clutched hold of the living twig before it fell and became the stick I am chewing in the picture. That bird flew and perched on other twigs. And ate berries! The bird might have pooped on that stick. Wow! And then... And then think of sky. Think of clouds. And the tops of the tree that the stick grew from absorbing the air that travels from who knows where. 

Oh my... Perhaps I am getting a little bit carried away. And I left out squirrels. Oh Gosh! Think of squirrels... My mama says that poets do get carried away, especially when they don't have time to edit. What's edit? I just love chewing on sticks.

Extra is of Lumen, the poet: thinking of sticks.