The Poets
They are farmers, really–
hoeing and planting
in strict rows ripe with manure,
coaxing each nebulous seed
to grow. Year after year
of drought or rainstorm,
locust or killing frost, they bundle
their hay into stacks
of inflammable gold, or litter
the barn floors with empty husks.
At the market they acknowledge
each other gruffly and move on,
noting who has the more bountiful
harvest, whose bushel baskets
are laden with beets and tomatoes,
tumescent with fruit.
Under the sheen of success
or the long shadow of failure,
what they labor for remains
the same: their own muscular
beanstalk rocketing skyward
from a single bean.
