In the wide field far from the crooked slab cave but not far the winding flat bankless stream.
In the wide field of tall thwacking tuffted grasses much moved by artless hoppers, barreling bumblers, fluttering butterflies.

C: To rise early with the summer sun!
A joy at life.
A: Here, reach me the steel canteen —
round and on each flat side
fuzzed with unknown tartan.
C: Drink deeply in the morning light.
Each gulp enfolds the sun
and by stages chugs it in.
A: [he drinks] Ah, water!
C: We should make breakfast.
A: We should catch trout
and fry them in a pan.
C: We have oatmeal.
A: And some fruit …
B: [approaching from a domed tent, still sleepy in her eyes and with hair matted by the ground] Good morning!
C: Hello!
A: My heart.
C: We thought we’d make some oatmeal.
A: With fruit.
B: Lunch will be fresh caught fish that didn’t know what skewered ’em.
C: No, we have to move. The land beneath our feet must shift from blazing grasslands to dark forest earth to rocky sandy piney slope — and all this before nightfall!
B: Lunch will be an exhausted granola bar after already breakfasting on oats.
A: In the cave in the mountainside we’ll find —
What will we find?
C: Oh, how adventuresome the world’s become,
now that order’s lost her hold
and chaos grows reckless bold !!
A: I wouldn’t have chosen it.
B: At least you can digest oats.
A: We’ll cook the oatmeal thirty minutes.
C: Haven’t the time!

AMW/BW