Fields bristle with corn stubble like an old tweed
mantling the earth ( scruffy lapels the rough hedgerows )
heaved rumpled, damply musky, dusty and discarded.
Here and there icy puddles shimmer, glimmer weakly
under a water-logged ceiling, where a swirl of leaves suddenly
twirls skyward on the chill eddy of a Northerly whirlwind.
Crisp boxes are buttoned down to the hillocks ( here a house,
there a shed, silver silo or big red barn ) with running boy,
barking dog, cattle or machine miniatures scattered nearby.
Tree bones reach out scarecrow fingers as we glide past,
toward some warm cheeks soothed by cool window glass,
to birds on wing who notice, to fleet clouds who never ask.
Turned soil glistens like rows of beaver pelts, a luxuriant
groundcover under the late afternoon sun, while I nestle
into the comfy serge corner seat, car rumbling confidently beneath me.
My young parents smile at each other on the front seat, sunset splaying
glints of gold into their hair as they converse inaudibly,
baby asleep between them; but as for me,
I feel like a millionaire alone upon the back seat
first published in Bellowing Ark
©2003 Bonnie Manion