Sunflower, Mississippi

In those days, at the edges of the fields, I began to see

in the cypress & tupelo stitchwork of light & shadow,

the face of God. Egrets winged like words away

from me. Where Church Street gave way—every trembling

morning he was there—an old man sat slumped

on an overturned bucket. He watched me

drive a highway I know you know from all the songs.

When I say God I mean of course the songs, the day aching

into itself. No matter the season, that light

honeyed beans & cotton & fallow alike, shone dandelion

& rose on broken irrigation tiles, shovels

booted into ditchbanks & waiting.