The Winter Warrior

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.