Wait

Outside in unsettled early winter dark

The hunters return to their pickups

Parked sideways along now-brittle corn rows.

They’ve been hunting, while

Dogs sit on my feet when they hear the gunshots.

I would sit on someone’s feet too, but

This is the ritual

As fall beckons into winter,

Up here, out there, and

Not sure, of course, but

Didn’t some of us already know this?

We just sit back and thank our gifts of age,

Try not to get hijacked by all these

Urgencies coming at us.

Can someone tell me

Why I am disturbed?

I saw the sky and watched

As the west claimed the sunset line

And I wondered if

At least the horizon might stay the same.

Now, Bobby works his fields,
As darkness

Precludes the hunt.

The headlamps of his combine shine

Into my kitchen,

The late cutting

Somehow a comfort.

Thinking and giving up to feeling,

I decide to hold on to

The things I understand.

The wind comes up,

This season bolts in fits and starts

Into what it knows, and I realize,

These things are not about the struggle

They are about the light.