The Season
You puzzled me with refraction, your mysterious guise,
(bending your hair in light, like corn under windy skies).
A shimmering illusion, a trick of the dawn’s early gleam,
causing me to look the wrong way, lost in a dream.
Your essence, like an underground stream, flowed unseen,
for your root cause, I plowed the field, yet it remained pristine.
In earth’s quiet wisdom, the truth lay untold,
my furrowed brow mirrored the furrowed fold.
You spoke to me from heaven, from the vast cerulean expanse,
(and I looked down) in the soil, seeking your dance.
Your voice in the wind rustling the autumn leaves,
in the silence of the winter, in the spring that deceives.
In the bounty of summer, under the sun’s searing gaze,
your riddles whispered in the crackle of the maize.
You answered me in riddles and caused me to drive onto the rocks,
like a wayward vessel tossed by the unyielding equinox.
But in the turned earth, in the seed’s silent plea,
I found your truth, in the cycles of a bountiful tree.
Roots deep in the Pee Dee, branches reaching for the light,
You puzzled, spoke and answered, in the day and in the night.
In the seasons’ eternal riddle, in the plow’s steadfast toil,
I found you not in heaven, but in the humble soil.