Before cell phones
and not talking to strangers
we ground the brown dust of our feet
stirred the smell of caution
Before digital life
or leashed kids
we lived in trees
sucked their roots
rested with birds that told time
before they lost feathers to our pockets.
Before being guarded
lost to the maps of our memory
and unfixed plots
Before texting
the sound of our golden voices topping the corn
Before fear of being found out
our coordinates suspended
in the joy of captivity
to the long, unpunctuated hours