Like a Farmer

Like a farmer whose furrowed fields lie pregnant yet parched in the sun, I search the line that marries earth to sky for the faintest slip of white, A sign that moisture gathering in those depths might offer more than shade. Men and equipment are still now - all the forces that I command. Days filled with promise rise and fall like children missing their turn, While the gesture that could free them lies camouflaged in the crazing of the earth. Mindful that shapes deceive and breezes die, still I grow, no longer just a watcher of clouds. I sing a primitive song of desire to the power that governs her gathering, And open my arms to embrace an answered prayer, the moisture of her breath. Brian Johnston Blunt, South Dakota 1989