Green Pastures

The boy who has crawled

through the barbed wire fence to chase his dog

lies down in green pastures. Off to the right

a cottage and an old stone barn

look serenely deserted. Is there a soul

that cannot be restored? A time on the planet

all bets are called off? I have seen such pastures

at the end of Korea, littered with bodies, the medics

fanning across them like a flock of butterflies

to opening flowers. There is a pasture

high in the Adirondacks Winslow Homer painted

with two stabs of light. The boy seems asleep

or trying to close his eyes so tightly he will enter

the mind of his dog. All bets off? What does it take

to convince you that the hills are not asleep,

and the boy is not dreaming? Turning back and forth

in a North Dakota pasture is a radar screen

looking out for the Russians. In a small bowl of hills

wires are strung above deep pasture grass

to catch the faintest traffic from the stars

parsecs away. It is hopeless

to ignore a world that did not pass away

despite our avowals. Sunrise. Sunset. The green

stems of grass that touch against the boy

seem to hold the wind in place. A tractor

ridden by the brushstroke of a man

has been weaving for hours

on the farmlands behind us. Surely it is time

to rest, to lie down in the green beneath the blue

and call it a day

or if we cannot do that, call it something given

to us-like sleep and waking up and sometimes rain

standing in the air around us as we walk

gratefully through it and it parts a little while.