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THERE IS WONDER ONLY LIGHT
There is wonder, only light,
in rows plowed through a field.
in how the farmer knows the hill
how tractor-furrowed lines
must yield to Earth’s design
how each best artist’s line is drawn in mud,
the best poems dug for planting not too deep.
Soil is spare enough skin
to stretch across the ribs
so plowing proves the bone beneath.
And every prayer must drive across and down,
and up around the hill.
And curve along the sweep,
so umber trails give shape to words,
and gold below shines promised fields of wheat,
combed smooth in perfect leaning
towards the east.
And where the farmer hesitates,
he knows a halted beat.
Where he circles stubborn vine,
he ties and tends a rhyme.
By olive trees, old, thick, and bent,
twist cranky links of phrase,
and speed through rusty gates
to stanzas swinging wide.
Patti Trimble, 2013
