Edisto Fields

for Andrew

Picture this field in the darkness and listen for footsteps of roe deer
walking on corn that is flat -- beaten last summer by hail.

Listen for mice that have eaten, for brown grasshoppers who call out
nightly by singing their one song to the blackness of night.

Listen for wind in the dark as it rustles its fingers against gold
grass in the opposite field, grass that comes wildly up.

Starless and moonless, the people that live in that tumbled down shack stare
out at the night and at you staring at nothing at all.