I gaze upon a sea of wiregrass,
each windrow after windrow all windblown.
My hopper full, I’ll make another pass,
deaf to the wind, drowned in my tractor’s drone.
I’m crushing golden stems and thorny thickets,
and puffing out white plumes of seedy fluff,
and breaking up the roosts of moths and crickets.
I watch them flick away. They’ve had enough.
And, frankly, so have I, but two days in.
Fall bloom is done. The brown Liatris spires,
the baby longleaf pine - to my chagrin -
succumb beneath the pressure of my tires.
On glimpsing my machine, its soulless girth,
I wonder who’d conclude I loved this earth?