Read at Broadway Christian Church - Jan. 24

CORN

Back
to east central Illinois
to where my early years still linger,
to where the horizons are flat
and the dirt
is black
and Corn still owns the land.

Off
the paved road
and on to gravel
that thumps the floorboard
and boils behind us
marking for the farm folk
visitors passing through.

Inside,
decades old stories,
like forgotten friends,
shake themselves awake,
chatter for my attention,
pointing out the turns
to the farmstead where once we lived.

Rounding
the corner, adjacent to the farm,
the stories are stilled
as they hold their collective breath.
no house, no corncrib,
no trees, no barn,
no stage for them on which to play.

Living yet
are the stories,
although their stage is gone.
for now on that black dirt
of my childhood
standing soldier-like in row upon row
the Corn’s returned to claim its land.