Noel Smith




Spring Planting

  

He turns the earth early for seed

which will follow in furrows

each round of the wheel as I watch.

 

In the evening the whippoorwil

whistles. Clouds shroud a new moon.

Blackest night for the vegetables

 

of which we eat the earth bound root,

brightest moon with its silver eye for those

of which we eat the leaves.

 

This has all happened before and before

as each year he husbands the roan

colored earth.  Like spider's lace

 

his spirit spreads over this ground

as it coaxes twin spikes into corn,

bean sprouts to light,  round knobs

 

of cabbage, and dark orbs of berries

which ripen and drop to his palm.

Wine for a late autumn eve.




Noel Smith has had poems in New Letters, Shenandoah, and Innisfree.  Her collection of poems, The Well String, was published by Motesbooks in 2008.  You can visit more of her work at Noelsmithpoetry.com.  She was born in NYC and now lives in the lower Hudson Valley.









                                    

 

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