Middle Boy

Who is he as defined

Under a cottonwood tree

By fence that corners into kind

Under the cottonwoods lee

–

A kind of blindness there

A young man penned in

The yard not seen at all

For the vision he sees within

–

One alone he was as now

Always outward bent

Sees clearly head bowed

The heaven he’d been sent

–

Of the sun adrift on fields

Purple with wet remaindered

And trees round that shield

Where open spirit is chambered

–

But like the sun reeled away

The vision that grew thin

Now addled, now astray

Forgetting where he’d been

–

But that’s how it goes, always goes

He’d kept the kernel hid

Of strong light, rains and snows

On fields when a kid