Big Garden

As a child
I would often
cross the road
and catch grasshoppers
by their little legs
in the scrub patch
opposite our house.
We called it 'Big Garden'.

I would let them go at once.
I just needed that moment
when their tiny bodies thrusted
in the delicate tweezers
of my fingers.

That's twenty years ago I suppose.
The big garden is now a house
and my hands are too big for
catching grasshoppers.
I don't mind.
My priorities are different these days
anyway.