Grasshoppers are waves
As the prow of the plow mows,
Buries broken stalks.

We cannot eat this compost
We plow into the earth,
These memories of forebearers,
Their bodies, their fears.

We can till this harvest soil,
We can furrow our buried loves
And our dusty parents' blood.
Here, where their children died,
We can plant seeds,
We can pick flowers.

Where we don't sow our gardens,
Nettles will grow
And brambles will entwine the garbage
So we not only can plant roses and taters,
We must.

The hickory taller,
The boulder rolled more downstream,
Are memories of years.

Shagbark hickory and wild cherries
Dropped their leaves in times before,
Oaks sowed their acorns
Across the valley
Where now log cabins crouched.

Cornfields sprouted and tater patches
Where stumps had been plowed up
White tails still crept with the creek,
Silent as water mocasins.

Then husbands hid in cornfields
And those discovered died,
Their widows and orphan daughters
Harvested and plowed.

Cabins burned and clapboards flared
And children died of frost,
People were mown and roses scythed
By rampant history.

Where we don't sow our gardens
Nettles will grow
And brambles will entwine the garbage
So we not only can plant roses and taters,
We must.

An empty snake skin
Caught grass seed, hungry harvest!
Hope must be buried.

Greenbriars have always been here,
Bearing berries and bright, happy leaves,
Their smiles hide blood bringing thorns.
They clamber across low trees
And the occasional ruin.

Shade and orchard trees drooped not for grief
That the forest had been felled.
Pansies and rugosas flourished,
Swooning not at the loss of violets and ramblers.

We must water the pollarded rosebush,
Mowed as its canes be to the ground,
We shall set a bench by its arbor in the shade
Where folks in golden years
Will sit and knit.
Their tales will wind together
From disparate threads of lives
And mixed with the tellings
Will be smells of rich blooms.

There'll be new dwellings in this wasteland
Where children of all shades and ages,
At least for a little while
Will not run screaming and streaming gore
And dotted on the landscape
Will be parks and lovers' lanes.

Where we don't sow our gardens,
Nettles will grow
And brambles will entwine the garbage
So we not only can plant roses and taters,
We must.