Wheat and Memory

[David Nelson Bradsher]

Wheat and Memory

The wheat fields are a thatch of hair,
blondly alive in warming air,
rustling the tendrils of my mind
as I reflect where once I pined
over a particular regret:
that I had let the June sun set
without the planting of a kiss
on lips that I would come to miss.

She was a farm girl: sweet and loyal,
softly demure, but like a coil
that would spring up with wiry strength.
We used to sit and talk, at length,
about the rural life, the charm
of living on the family farm,
cicada songs on summer nights,
and calamine on chigger bites.

The silent moments, though, possessed
the symptoms of my deep unrest,
an eye-to-eye expectancy,
and pink, unspeaking lips to me,
saying, “It’s now or…well, it’s never.
A kiss—or lose your chance forever.”
My hesitance prevailed. I lost.
The wheat still sings the hushing cost.

[mfwilkie]

On a first read, there's so much I like.

[David Nelson Bradsher]

Thank you, Mags.

[LynnDoiron]

Mugs read this one to me by phone [she was that proud of it, D] and I liked it then, just listening, and I like it here, just reading.

I think any change would probably do harm, but after another read, and another, just wanted to throw out the idea of removing the simile word 'like' and turning the field on a metaphor of hair, as in

The wheat fields are a thatch of hair,
blond, awave, on the warming air,
rustling remembrance from my mind

It's the difference, I'd suppose, of working the earth "like" a body or as a true body, an entity that rustles the mind . . . And, truly, I love it as you've already written it -- just some thoughts I'm passing on for your weighing.

lynn

[David Nelson Bradsher]

Thank you, Lynn, for your time and attention to this piece. I very much like your personifying idea, and I do believe I'll revise with that in mind. Working on the revision now.

[David Nelson Bradsher]

Revision up, Mags and Lynn. Thank you both.

Lynn, I think I may have solved the "like" issue.