Becoming James Dean

What we saw back then
Was the way it could have been
Distilled like silver
From the weeping willow tree
The old Massey Ferguson paint chipped red
The lurching engine and greasy axle
As we flipped hay onto the trailer bed
Young and lean
Barely sixteen
Weened on the twilight and sound of thrushes
Of riding the horses into the tree lined forest
The old wood dump
The smell of grain from the mill
Your oily work gloves
And the soft gray dust from the hayloft
Hanging like long fingers in the sunlight
The stomping of hooves and the twittering Of barn birds
We sampled the
Strawberry preserves out of the old jar
Without a spoon
And slept under stars
On blankets sweating dreams
The pastoral skittering Of field mice
And the airstream jets overhead
This is what we saw back then
This is how it could have been
When we were becoming James Dean…