I have a thing about cornfields
after the reaper comes through.
The moodiness of desolate acres,
the eerie silence,
almost like a graveyard.
Row after straight row
of dirty-blonde cornstalks
cut to stubble.
Stray stalks flattened, lying askew,
or upended and jutting at sharp angles.
The cold wind whistles untethered
across the level landscape
to the woods where the trees
stand stripped to their bones.
To keep warm, I curl into myself
like the brittle rust and sienna weeds
at the far edges.
The rocky New England soil is packed hard,
random impressions of tractor tires
preserved for the winter freeze.
These are the acres of sowing and harvest.
The land where coyotes roam
searching for a meal
under November’s Beaver Moon,
where I walk with my dogs
to ponder the way the Earth
is both bountiful and withholding,
stepping to the rhythm of the field’s cycles,
listening for the music of what lies beyond.
Christine Andersen is a retired dyslexia specialist who now has the time to write and hike daily in the Connecticut woods with her five dogs. Publications include the Comstock, Awakenings, American Writers, Octillo, and Gyroscope Reviews, Glimpse, Slab, The Dewdrop, Her Words and Ravens Perch, among many others.
