Night Farming in Bosnia
Ray Keifetz
Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest 2015 (view all the winners)
Honorable Mention, Tom Howard, Poetry
Drawn
by perfumed tomatoes,
dry rattling beans,
stalks, shoots, leaves,
whiffs and gleans,
we crawl in the dark
over furrows still steaming.
Hunger drives even moles
from their holes
and we are not moles.
We were farmers
when we planted these fields.
Overhead the threshing wings
an owl...a mouse...interrupts
our feeding.
We were farmers
when we poisoned the voles,
now we strip the furrows.
A whisper
runs through the night
there are farmers in the field.
There are farmers in the field.
They shine their lights.
Their scythes are sabers.
They gather us like flowers
for their vases.
First published in The Bitter Oleander, Vol. 16, No. 2
