Tired of Earth

Wind bites dust from the furrows
and clouds your eyes, runs through the yard
in a gust of feathers, chills the early dusk,
summer is gone, slipped through our fingers
so precious we did not know how to keep it.

Gossamer threads stream from fence wires
spun out of nowhere to catch at your face
like veils worn to shadow grief;
a brown leaf flutters reluctantly
like a flag lowered after a holiday.

Roadsides breathe the heavy smell
of dead weeds, across the fence
smoking manure piles ripen the air
as days shrink and empty rows
of cornstalks kneel on broken knees.

Cows trample the vines, pigs run
over the garden where bursted cabbage rots
after frost. The gardener has gone away,
stooped with harvest, tired of fertile earth,
and left the gate wide open to the world.