The Farmer's Son

My father is dying and the huddled fields

Sway in a sea of light this heat of June,

When silent girls bow to the ripening grass

And fold themselves in greenness one by one.

The shining trees are teethed with bark; the scythe

Falls through the heavy day . . . is it good

When invisibly lightning reaps the air.

I run to catch the last light in the wood

We walked at May; he told me how the sex

Stirs like a barb in every deepening thing,

How water mates by drowning and the deer

Founders a ritual in death. Yet how long

The sun leaks from the hill, and in that shock

Will run into an earth where green is black.