For the sullen,
There is, in a wheatfield buried in snow,
Silent coppercold comfort.
As if, with the drowning out of jubilant life
there resides in the Earth empathy deep as frost
wrapped like tentacles around
roots long ago
thrust into the
silent, silent, soil tomb.
To the prodigal,
the golden roiling wheatfield’s waves—
now hushed—
whisper life unbegun:
the wintry soil barely suppressing the
trembling seeds,
tremulous life still captive.
Death and life,
beneath the Earth:
begetting one another—
each the other’s beginning and end,
each the other’s shadow,
each the other’s
meaning beneath the wintry meadow.
