Storms tear across The Farm…

Laid Low
 
Two things happened when the storm barreled through
the fields and birds took the brunt of the blow.
The ripened corn laid down before the wind
its dark husks stretched, protecting yellow seeds
its bend of stalks, beheaded by the gusts
where tangled silk lay scattered on the earth.
 
The storm ranged far, and songbirds scattered, lost
into the outstretched arms of mighty spruce.
The argent sheets of rain beat through the sky
where cries and chirps of nestlings swallowed whole
revealed a soul of silence on my farm.
 
Furious winds tossed fledglings from their nests
their beady eyes held hostage through the storm
when corn laid low, laid down, before the wind.
 
I, now curious, searched below the skirts
through fanned out boughs, I blundered for the hurt
and found the vanquished tumbled to the ground.
 
Our green gold corn lay broken in the fields
in morning’s blush I surveyed all the range
where thunder winds sheared muted verdant stalks
where I could hear a fledgling’s piercing chirps
where I well-knew that freight train called the wind:
watched corn laid low amidst the summer’s storms
when storms beat bloody torrents through the night
where the corn laid low
where the corn laid low.
 
 
 
 
 
 
by Barbara Helvey Hughes, 9-16-2020 & 4-20-2020 from steno 6-9-2009