No Harvest

An Ohio Blue Tip is flicked to life in a field of uncut wheat.
Cupped by a bulging hand covered in ashen hair,
it’s raised to meet a Lucky and a deep breath.
Smoke lingers,
then dives into the wrinkles brought on by sixty-seven summers.
Eyes of sapphire stare out across the field,
fixed on a clump of maples near the west road.

Those eyes.
America’s eyes.
His eyes.

His eyes have felt the sting of sweat
and the cutting edge of the harrow’s reins
as two nags led him across the earth.
His eyes have worried through framed glass,
darkness,
hail dancing on the tin roof.
His eyes wept under a September sun
as his son’s blood drained into the grass
from beneath an overturned John Deere.
His eyes laughed when Old Roy sprouted
quills from the end of his snout.
His eyes questioned the skies
when they brought no rain and the dirt rose like a ghost and flew away.
His eyes turned bitter when fields of towering corn were crushed
beneath the pavement of a new shopping mall.
His eyes choked for breath when a pink slip from the auditor
shoved them into the red.
His eyes trembled as a man in a gray suit
beat an auction sign into the yard using his worn shovel.
His eyes dimmed as friends and strangers roamed his farm looking for treasures.

His eyes died
as he cast away the Lucky
into a field of uncut wheat,
turned and crept back to his home
within the city limits.

copyright 2010 Scott Sprunger