Worms

In keeping with the wormy theme of last Monday's post, The Western Kingbird Adventure, I offer this poem about a favorite summer night activity children enjoyed back in the 1950s.

Photo by Julian Zwengel on Unsplash

My flashlight probes the jungle
under petunia leaves and tomatoes
searching the yeasty loam for worms.

Stretched out across the soil 
too damp even for its moist body, 
is a fat one at least a foot long.

I snatch the middle and pull against
its grip; this tug-o-war ends with a snap.
Another succulent morsel joins 

A squirming mass bound for trout.
Summer nights, we searched gardens, 
neighbors unconcerned about voices

beneath their windows. Except one.
I pretend to hunt at David's house
while he hides fully dressed 

under covers. The babysitter scowls,
tired, impatient, ready to kill.
She approaches the window,

Knowing I'm there, but out of sight.
I seek other fields to plunder until 
my partner in mischief can escape.

And why, you might ask, would children hunt earthworms? In my innocent neighborhood near the main highway through town, there were people who would sell earthworms as fish bait to trout fisherman. My father preferred salmon eggs, but lots of figherman loved to stick a squiggling worm on a hook to lure a fish. Maybe they were lake fishers while my father loved the challenge of tempting a big German brown out of a roiling mountain stream.

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