To the Boy, To the Dog, To the Farmer
All that shimmers is not
greener on the other side.
Tell that to the boy standing
at the schoolhouse door, looking
over his shoulder at the lemony
half-halo topping the eastern hills.
To the whipped dog, yipping,
hightailing it away,
away.
To the farmer, tucking his bare feet
into cold Point Reyes sand,
his back to his faraway home,
salty winds all but blowing him over—
in those rolling whitecaps
he sees waves of grain
and dried cornstalks waiting
to be chopped down.
This morning’s handful
of dew-glazed strawberries,
riddled with ants.
Warm pie on the sill, meringue
weeping pearls,
tart sun beneath.
Incandescence everywhere,
light-rimmed
promise and peril.
Judy Brackett's poetry chapbook, Flat Water: Nebraska Poems, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2019. Her poems have appeared in California Fire & Water, Epoch, The Maine Review, Commonweal, Midwest Review, Subtropics, Cultural Weekly, The Inflectionist Review, Crab Orchard Review, Catamaran, and elsewhere. Born in Nebraska, she has lived in the California foothills of the northern Sierra Nevada for many years. She is a member of the Community of Writers and has taught creative writing and English literature and composition at Sierra College. Her website is: www.judybrackettcrowe.com.