He walks across his fields
careful of meanings
impressed by thunder
silent in the rain
through tedious tractor afternoons
dreams of bumper harvests
and of drought
of corn-green rows well tended
picking up a clod of dirt
he worries it to soil
listening to the land
speak its leafy language
then cuts a melon tapped for days
before it answered, Ready
waiting, eating, which was better
he couldn’t say
II
Dusk, and crickets come alive
cornflowers glow
with fireflies aflirt above them
as fields grow dim
then fog, and nothing
save fog
and through it, crickets
crying for love
he sees the still corn growing
half-asleep, thinks
I love this as the fish the pond
through the night, crickets
waking, he hears them
until the fog lifts
from morning’s fields