I fell in love with a field of rye.
It happened this spring for the first time and I am not young.
Let me tell you how this field was both a single being and a multitude.
How it lay open to sky, wind, creature, sound.
How it rippled and flowed, bent, bowed, lay down, arose,
stood tall, grew taller, held its ground.
It hummed and whispered.
Sometimes it went completely still.
I watched it build itself out of nothing but chemistry
in a few short weeks, each stalk forming leaflet, segment,
grain head, braid, fine hairs. As it grew, wild daisies
bloomed inside the long straight rows, each a separate question
to do with love. The sun drove patterns through the furrows,
weaving self and shadow into its warp and woof
and every single color would show, threading stems
with teal, bronze, blue-black, azure, purple, silver-white.
It held the whole world for a while.
And even when the rye was cut down
and lay flat on the earth to dry
where it fell, the all of it
radiated a gold and silver light.
Still, it glowed.
from WHEEL (Terrapin Books)
Hayden Saunier is the author of six poetry collections, most recently, Wheel, published in 2024. Her work has been published in such journals as Beloit Poetry Journal, Nimrod, Southern Poetry Review, The Sun, and Virginia Quarterly Review and has also been featured on Poetry Daily, The Writer’s Almanac, and Verse Daily .Awards include a Pushcart Prize, Rattle Poetry Prize, Pablo Neruda Award, Gell Poetry Award. Hayden is a Bucks County Poet Laureate. Learn more at www.haydensaunier.com.
Poet’s Corner is curated by Bucks County Poet Laureate Emeritus Tom Mallouk and supported by a grant to the Bucks County Herald Foundation made possible by Marv and Dee Ann Woodall.
To submit a poem for consideration, email it to Heraldpoetscorner@gmail.com. If the poem has been previously published, please say where it first appeared.
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