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The Children of the Green Fields

We children of the green fields
arbored by molting cottonwood,
lazy hounds of heated afternoon,

worrying our little elbow sleeves
to holes with impertinent disregard,
watch iridescently-frocked
dung beetles roll with relentless
pious intent,

perfect spheres of offal,
plowing subtle sun-glazed
canals leading to Paradise.

We children of the green fields,

follow cows home to milking:
held in gentle musk of
milkwood hollows
cooling gloom 'neath elm,
oak and sycamore,
choked by ragweed and
possum grapevines:

smoked in surreptitious sin:
above speckled woodpeckers
tattoo hollowed walnut trunks,
drumming: "Here they are!
Here they are!"

The late toll of a cow's bell:
A plaintive nocturne,
a call to prayer on folded
flannelled knee, witnessed
by a sentineled candle,

a flutter of the innocent heart
winks conspiratorially of our
impending unfaithfulness:
the night thickens.

We hear shadowed clouds
glide over a sickled moon.
reflected eyebrow of summer's
slumber,
hurrying eager fog through
ragged ravines,
red clay wounds stitched
by a willful wind:

whispering ancient secrets
through wallpapered walls:

Somnambulant, we drift on perfumed barges
billowed with silk and dream of omnipotent
giants stalking the land, Kings and Queens
of our domain: Masters at last,
We children of the green fields.

Learn more about this author, J. Don Cook.
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