gold, dust, loss

I. Gold

summer wheat, pools of
yellow, filling fields under
vibrant, living blue.
The breeze blows soft, injecting life
through coarse denim.
rich earth, rough hands, raw sweat
itches down my spine.
My land, My work, My harvest
under the unrolled carpet of sky.
The yellow stain of flowers pressed between pages,
faint imprints of past joy.

II. Dust

billows in a red sea
rolling, enveloping, devouring
endless wall of destruction
ebb and flow
break and build
tear and repair
wear my bones
waves on rock.
roaring, whistling, pounding.
Dust creeps beneath the door,
peers through the panes,
coats my limbs,
weighs me down.
Dust brings debt brings death brings pain.
Jaw up, eyes hard, hands busy.
The red will claim my home,
six feet under sand.

III. Loss

The good, the green, the gold
lie buried beneath folds of gray
clutched by the relentless waves.
If the bank wants the land, let them have it.
it serves now as grave to wheat and man and spirit
preserved, petrified
beneath weathered wood and dunes of sand.
My pride could join them under there.
Then I wouldn’t have to look at this,
my Used-to-be-Home.
We should have left when the Dust first came,
malicious, intent to drive us out.
We should have followed the streams of cars
drifting with the current, racing to outrun famine and death and sand,
Wasn’t he a horseman, too?
i am trapped, now

Inspired by the events of the Dust Bowl.