If the weather is just right
and the corn has great genes
and the soils are supersized (black)
sometimes the corn looks black!
Today is one of those days!
Heavy cumulous clouds are rolling past
and the corn is over the top, growing
so fast, it’s just amaizing!
Dark, dark green,
ever so lush
breezes combing it in waves
it looks like an ocean of green/black!
Add to that silver reflections from waving leaves
and the fields are really sparkling!
What a lovely day to savor, remember!
How I wish you could see it too!
Couched in knowledge
of this food, fiber, and fuel crop
that we are gifted year after year
to the extent we fill our granaries
to their tops
and then pour mountains more outside!
“Hog butcherer of the world!’
How much more, we now grow
and export by giant shiploads
this gifted crop called corn.
In a hundred days
a kernel multiplies
five hundred times….
All that,
and we get to see the ocean
sparkling, green and black.
Lin, June, 2011
Special dedication to Laverl Byers, farmer
and Langston Hughes, “Freedom’s Plow”
and Carl Sandburg, “Chicago Poems”