Catching
grasshoppers was my chore on
Sunday
afternoon fishing trips.
Tobacco
juice, my father called it,
When I held
out my stained fingers and grimaced,
Because I
thought the brown liquid was grasshopper guts.
He smiled
and took the green-brown insect from my hands,
Speared it
with a hook and threw it into the shallow water of
The
Little Pond, the red and white bobber floating
Without
moving on that August, windless day because
Rainwater
ponds don’t have currents until
Frogs, fish,
or storms break the surface.
I went back
to work, walked about the hay field;
Watched the grasshoppers’
high, broad jumps;
Watched to
see where they landed in the tall grass,
Tried to catch
another one in the palms of my hands;
My eyes
strained against the glare of the sun,
Strained
against the insects’ camouflage,
Strained to
see the slightest motion in the grass.
Not knowing that
tobacco juice is a defense,
Not knowing
they wait for nine months to hatch,
Not knowing they
can catapult into the air, but
Thinking
that they could jump farther than I could ever reach.
© cmheuer, 2017
