The sun burns a
path through the morning fog
to capture the transient russets and golds along
the road
that wither and
waste with winter’s approach as a lone
tractor creeps
across a field on a final till fore the ground is
left
to settle and sleep and recover.
The old man on
the tractor across the way
feels each bump
and dip through his booted feet up to his hips,
he knows the
clay and the sandy hill and the stubborn drain
of the muddy low.
The lay of the land is choreographed
in the analytic
brain of our winter warrior
who refuses to
go south with the rest of his friends.
This is where
I’m from, from how far I’ve come
to come back to
the quiet of October russets
where the birds
hover and hide in the dry rustle of the corn.
They swoop across
the land in flocks
for they need
their kind come winter.
For now they
rest in the standing corn
as the tractor crawls
across the field with a man at the wheel—
an old tractor
that needs a firm hand on the wheel,
the swollen
knuckles of the winter warrior.