Signposts and Hedges

The wealth of being here: plump cherries that droop
fat-bellied from leaves, green spears whose tips stretch
dream-ward for one dance with the dangling moon,
ochre roses over concrete walks

that run north by northwest to the old town square
where quart milk cartons catch on park bench legs
beneath lonely men with little cash to spare,
and further on to barns with rooster cages,

rust-red barrels, snarls, yips on gravel roads,
past stiff-stalked fields and slow, one-lane traffic
to hills that rise above the last signpost.
Don’t say I should turn back on this flesh magic –

leave this body’s toils, loves, grievous hurts –
for an Eden unlike this wild, delicious earth.

Visiting My Brother’s Nebraska Farmstead On 
August 30th At Dusk

Stars drop
like salt
on tablecloth.
The hay
is pitched,
bucked in bales
I can barely make out
in the green field
where the cricket
flicks its thighs
at the lone
porch light.

The hoarse toad
bloats
from the moss pond.

At once, I know
I am of the earth tonight.