Light (in the Sorrow Field)
She tilled and toiled
in her own sorrow field
and found that grief’s a place
none knows till it’s revealed
by entering it. That there’d be
joys of night
she stored the gems of waking hours
and prayed to see morning’s delight.
A widow woman. Not like the bird
in constant fright
and flight from hawks by day
and owls by failing light,
she reckoned earth
and knew demise of cowslips
between hedgerow and silage strips
a preview of apocalypse.
What once were farms,
she’d say,
are now food factories.
Between hay-
and harvest-time
the wheels of years accelerate
till winter changes gears
and they capitulate.
More like the hare, field faring,
and following its holy orders
to lie low, true to form,
to be itself within the borders
of what’s now, that she sees, through gate or gap,
and, though the wind cuts like a knife,
tells, Go, long lugged, long leggèd one,
run for fun, run for your life.