Country Poem

Bronze bells ring wide over a hazy plain
Where days roll thick and linger long and lazily -
Lulled in to lie on soil’s old fertile furrow
Foregoing urgent course, forgetting gain...

The people harvest lilac lavender for trade
And bend their backs in rows of August vine
And sunrise rouses resting animals to graze
Like any slowborn year, like any time.

Old men drink and commiserate in stonewalled courts. 
Lithe cats lie outstretched on bright beds of thyme. 
Women weave images of dreams on Sunday garments. 
The soul receives its customary tithe -
And lies and reassurances alike disperse
Along ancestral memories’ unbroken line.
The houses harbor generations’ work.
White walls whisper old spirit’s wisdom to the mind.

And strangers pass through 
In peace and in war - but 
Nobody ever lingers long...
And poverty’s blessing appears 
Disguised as hardship’s curse:
Men’s greed, unsatisfied, soon travels on.

Here homeward routes lead
Fast-rooted hearts
That always-evenly wander
On deep-tread grooves where long now 
Tear-salt spilled, blood-iron poured:
Life’s harvests bloom on fields yet somber.

There death demands an offering at birth 
And hunger ranges through a family’s heart. 
That hard-spoked wheel of Heaven’s will 
Unceasing turns, and undisturbed.

And whether simple songs are played 
For joy, new marriages, or mirth –
Or soul ascend from early grave – 
Rest silence on the face of Earth.

... September days, when all has grown. 
White flocks take flight for autumn leave. 
Young children play on river stones.
Like chimes their laughter echoes east 
Flies past the old man’s white-brick home 
Stooped low under late summer’s heat 
Still nearby gold-wheat’s woodland border 
Where grandmother’s cross can be seen.

-Julius Erzbrenner