Picture this: The arrogant breeze
on the combine rolling through a wide field of canola.
Before dawn.
Before the light breaks over the mountaintops
and the farmer grinds his teeth,
lights a dart
and wraps his dry withered mouth around
the billowing fumes of toxic aggression
the snake oil prescription of a new morning.
Fighting tide against time;
Hope swinging in on the carcass of a new beginning,
and this is us.
Foul and fair,
idle against the breeze
and now turned against the wheels
of quiet contemplation.
Like the devil’s stare
screeching, into the midday air,
we look on beyond the hills on high
above and beyond the breathy wilderness.
We flayed the bark off of trees
carefully selected from the sizeable woods behind the yellow hills
and broke them down to build what we though
looked like our best impression of a home.
Age upon age,
tore and tilled the fields
and the woods
bent under the weight of the dying air.
Can he rebuild
the world he once made whole?
Tide and time
persist
always bringing with them
hope of a new sun rising
and the fields now grown tall
fit to be reaped.
But the light still fades
and pulls back the curtain of the stubborn hope.
An optimism once sturdy
as the wild prairie winds send the house
sideways; flying through the boundless badlands
and still sitting by my side.
Like a shadow
resting softly on the dirt.
And here we are,
still here
fading,
sinking into the barren soil.
I can’t believe we couldn’t make this work.
