Visions of Paullina, Iowa

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Behold the red sun
with ripe corona and radiant vestment,
A blazing ball bouncing lyrical reprise in scripted reflection:
word for word, shade for shade
Skywriting the liturgy of the hours, the hope of the heart in
vigil lights over fruitful fields
Where wheat wisps waltz to cornstalk crackles
while soybeans lay low as sleeping hens
Next to tractors, timid and tentative Deere idling
near Black Angus, tarpaper cutouts stuck to horizon fences

Family farm folk pass Communion bread
from generation to generation
Heaving beneath a yoke of burdens and a pile of debts,
the faithful plant seed money in sacrosanct soil
baptized by tears of toil
Keeping and tilling, bending and yielding to the will of something larger
Looking up to see the message, to swallow the magic and
choke back the wonder
Taking direction from the four winds


Copyright © Linda L. Bielowski, Ph.D.

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