so, i got to thinking
about all those words
planted in my language
where fertility grew them
to leave and stalk and pod

the farmer's words scatter
my fields like seed on clod
watered by thundering flashes
awash, fertilized and germinating

progeny seedlings, my own growth
in some time-lapse photography
writhing their creamy roots
into earthy loam and droning
on through a summer daze

into fruits of sweaty labors
on humid chlorophylled days
silks sultry green, stalking me
through rows and rows as far
as i can see, if i squint

the farmer, suspended in time
stands with his hands in pocket
or on some implement toed to soil
and surveys life's prospects
for this season, before the

days bake the green back into
the humus and the cornucopia
spills the field and orchard
this verse of the farmer's song
picked and stowed away cool

eyes closed now, ears gently
strain to hear, worldly phrasing
come from where? my larder
or some ancestor gleaning meaning
and dropping it into her apron

to carry home to hungry minds
to feed them something of today
and sustain them through a fallow
solstice and the chilled breeze

any cultivation harvested over
picked clean and harrowed flat
nearly time to plow it under again
while the farmer gazes the horizon
and sips something in his cup

© Goode Guy 2011-08-22