Note: This poem originally appeared in the Summer 2015 issue of CRUX (Vol. 51, No. 2).
April late the harrowing and sowing;
by the belly of June the sandhill
cranes arrived. Biking down
with Dad to get a better look,
we watched their slender shapes against
the soft-green shoots of early barley.
Strange birds, their bobbing forward
heads at every step, their barn-red
ball-caps and divided call, a rusty
gate hinged into a strident trill
sounding several sections off
The racket proving insufficient
to unsheathe the swelling kernel of the prairie,
there is no splintered echo, just a fade
and silent, rising germination.
That night, the window cracked, I'm wrapped
and warm within a single sheet,
and listening to the thunder grow
from guttural churn to perfect certainty—
the cranes' calls deepened and magnified
from resting on the fertile air.