Kernel

Tiny wrinkled thing
Size of a ladybug

Dry and dead as stone
It rested in my palm

I buried it beneath
The black leaf loam

From the grave it rose;
Green phoenix stretching

Lifting striated wings
Worshiping the sun

In months, taller than I
It rustled against the sky

Silver silk flowing
Over robust ears

Beneath rough sleeves
Cobs bulged with life

Rebirth from destruction
Born again from death

Multiplied like stars
Reformed and alive

Such is a spirit reborn
Like a kernel of corn

Waiting to Fall

Crippled and broken cornstalks;
pierce a field of waist-high grass
a weathered gray barn still stands
about a mile from the overpass

She was once the pride of the valley
where the harvest of plenty was kept
but now that there isn't any
she stands empty and windswept

She held the hope of America
so gently in her arms
and graced the land with bounty
from orchards, fields and farms

Farmers, crippled and broken
Watch their children leave the land
But whether epitaph or token,
The weathered gray barn still stands