"Preamble" by Keith Harvey

Preamble


Spring shifts into his summer,
one year after their garden,
theirs because it was theirs to name and define.
Now, he sits on the edge of a cornfield
dressed in his crow feathers,
listening to the wind rustling among dried leaves,
mice seeking desiccated kernels among weeds.
She tell his first-born,
marked by a blood red scar
that he is an agrarian
and that the cornfield is his.
In her magical thinking,
she sacrifices corn to Him,
as an eternal return.
She holds the past in cupped hands
and her son drinks her memories
of green days naked.
But he has another plan,
a quest that seeks their future
in deeper depths.
For this he needs a song.
He chants and rocks,
transcending the sand.
She hears only the crow caw.