Harvest Time Poem by Richard D Remler

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Tonight is as crisp
As a new memory,
Unsheltered
And bright
With stars,
A lamp filled with new oil,
And burning with
A fierce and
Biting wit.

It is almost eleven-thirty.
The City lights are going out
All over town,
And they're still
Trucking in
The new harvest,
With clouds of dust
Mixed with the remnants
Of corn husks and
Cobs torn in the
Combine,
That drift through
The tall trees
As the workmen run about,
Their voices barking
Over the roar
Of the diesel engines,
As they rush
To fill
Each silo
With an almost
Frenzied,
Hungry
Exhilaration.

It's been perfect
Weather for that,
No rain in sight
For the next week
Or so,
And the moisture count
For harvesting is
Almost at its very best.
It's been a bad year
For flooding,
And the damage
Down south of here
Was extensive.
Now they've managed
To harvest sixty-percent
Of the soybean crop,
And forty-percent
Of the corn,
And the flood
Damage is
Obvious.
The harvest is
Disappointing...


A quarter to midnight now,
And the thunder
Of their diesels
Drowns out the sound
Of my stereo,
Turning Alexandre Desplats's
'Benjamin And Daisy'
Into a confuzzled mesh
Of oddly redundant
Dings and bops and toots.

The cool air
Is a plus though,
For the summer
Has been extraordinarily
Hot and humid,
Days upon days
Of windless monotony,
Made even more
Unbearable
By repeated
Power failures,
And that annoyance
Where the shirt
Sticks
Possessively
To the body
With an almost
Magnetic appeal,
A sticky,
Dirty,
Sweaty
Magnetic appeal.

September 29th,
And it's finally Autumn,
Time to breathe in that cool,
Empty, winding,
Wild air
That sweeps away
The haunt of summer
And tells the trees
That it's time to start
Changing their coats,
That winter is
Just around the corner.

And,
Surprisingly,
In the dark of this
Clear, windless night,
I finally saw
A shooting star.
It's been a while
For that.
Like a new memory,
Crisp
And fierce.

Copyright © MMX Richard D. Remler