Indiana

I have dreamt of how we will stand
Together, in the harvested fields
The tall corn of our yesterdays
Fallen in the fallow soil
Buried, shallow, underfoot
Clods of soil frozen, crackling
The thin early morning frost melting
Rivulets running through the fields
Draining into the woods
Sycamores rising into the Indiana sky
Limitless and cold, forever
Wailing past the tall white houses
Alone atop their hills

I remember how I sojourned
From tree to tree foraging
A plum, an apple, and in the briars caught
Red-and-purple-handed
Berries all over my hands and face
Sucking on stalks of rhubarb
Savoring its bitter taste
And how the leaves of corn
Rasped my arms and legs
How I hid, low to the ground
Invisible as the warm summer wind
Waving, bending the ears of corn
Mine listening to mother calling from the hill
From the rich, black soil my hands dug into
From the banks of the creek
Running swift and silent in the woods
Our mother calling

When my sister heard the call
We all nearly lost her to the creek
Boy did I get in trouble then
Mary Ann and I playing in the corn
And sister tagging along
"I want to go to the woods," she said
With a voice determined and loud.
"I don't want to play hide-and-seek"
"Go then, go down to the creek.
We don't care. Just stop following us."
So, she did, turning her head
Following the slant of the earth instead
Lost to us in the tall summer corn
Running down invisibly into the trees

Hers was a sky of green waves of corn
Lashing at her smiling face
Briars rustling, brushing through her hair
Then vaulting skyward into sycamores
Branching and weaving, gray and white
Small green leaves swaying high overhead
Perhaps a hint of a limited sky
A sparkle of sun in the cool, tangled blue
Everything so tall, and all the different sounds
The creek so near with all its promises
Laughing, running on the rocks
My sister running beside, laughing
Dress hems and tresses trailing
Catching, tangled in the briars caught
Burrs all over her hands and face
The water still laughing, my sister crying
Mother screaming from the hill
And when she was finally found
My sister (and mother) cried,
"I wanted to see the fishies!"

I remember how we had a father once
How he made me run into the fields
Chasing after errant throws
Milkweed exploding as I hunted for balls
Rolling down the sloping earth
And when the day was waning
We would walk down into the woods
To a place where lightning had struck down
Two toppled but once mighty trees
And we would build with sycamore sticks and branches
A little more each day a shelter
A lean to against what was swiftly becoming
A cold, winter wind
Hoping always it would soon be finished
That some person or animal could make of it a home

I remember sitting on the porch with my sister
Crying into a warm summer breeze
The golden tops of corn drenched in sunlight
The limitless sky blue as far as the eye could see
Mother and father screaming inside the house
Alone, high atop the hill
And us just crying
Hoping soon it would all be finished

Now that the house just sits there
Empty and silent, alone atop the hill
With all the trees around cut down
And the wailing wind the only sound
I notice how the house has fallen
Into disrepair and into memory
Unless one had lived within its walls
One could hardly think of it as a home
But even then the white paint peeled a little
The doorway lintels slanted some
At either side of my parents room
The house slowly splitting apart
The whole foundation sliding
Imperceptibly down towards the trees
Where the fishies still are swimming
The creek laughing against the rocks
The milkweed bursting apart
And two sycamores lay fallen
With a few woven branches still stacked against them
Fragments shored against the ruins of a family¹

I have dreamt of how you and I will stand,
Sister and brother, in the harvested fields
The tall corn of our yesterdays
Fallen in turned soil
Buried, shallow, like the pain we share
In our hearts, limitless in understanding
Cold forever, the sky still blue
The brittle stalks of broken corn
Crackling underfoot in the melting frost
Woven into our memories
As we forgive, but never forget
How sweet the strawberries tasted after plums
But also how imperceptibly the fields
Slanted down into the woods
Where we ran and lost ourselves
Chasing after balls and fishies
Milkweed bursting at our footfalls
And from the white house that stood
Alone atop the windy hill
Our mother still calling

11/26/98 

¹T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland. "These fragments I have shored against my ruins…"