Clover Swaths

My eyes are cloudy with death.

I saw thirty acres of clover fall over the sickle bar
today (not the Grim Reaper, but a bright steel sickle
out of IHC guaranteed for sixty days against
faulty or defective workmanship).

Thirty acres of clover in full bloom died today,
besides such incidentals as a hen pheasant with
both legs cut off, her eggs decorating horses’ hooves;
and only God can count the number of bobolinks
and meadowlarks that find their world leveled.

Thirty acres of clover just in its prime,
in its greatest flower, this field—
lusty, sweet smelling, the seed nodes filling . . .

Tonight when I go for the cows
I shall see it lying there in flat definite swaths.

(Only the young men go to war.)