Near Dusk

It’s not the first time I’ve walked in woods
with my son, now thirty two, who squats
like a frog about to hop off the log’s edge.
It’s not the first time he’s pointed out
the black-winged damselfly,
not the first time I’ve leapt back to his childhood:
the schoolyards where we hunted for bugs
near dusk, the trails in deep woods,
the swamps we slogged through,
the creek near our old house, both of us bare-footed—
I was too young, in my early twenties.
We were both carrying nets, …