Small Thoughts While Planting Corn

They call it Fierce to face a cliff, to spider up
with climbing shoes and coiled rope, and Brave
to whack through bush in land unknown.
Brave to roam on earth that's tall and wide,
and Fierce to fly toward color, dust, and riot.

And so it sometimes is, but who I was
would not have called it such,
bent as I was toward tangle and wild,
reaches of trees and outcrops of stone.

A scrappy mass of freckles and bone,
not fierce or brave,
a simple tomboy hunting Fun
(which these pursuits would seem to be).

Now I bend to sow the corn,
with silver threading brown,
the same I was before
but more

and Fierce and Brave are many things,
so few would fit into my young-girl mind.
Fierce is facing dirty bowls with tired eyes
and Brave is choosing children over shouts of all who name us Fools.

Seeds over space,
souls over all,
again and again,
with a song.