John Grey

John Grey
 
Life of the Amish Farmer
 
Humidity overheats
and bursts like a boil:
heavy thunder, hail,
torrential rain and cooling.
The Milky Way drawn
by a single farm light
dangles out of the black.
By day, tobacco bends to the harvest.
The corn is holding green.
Esther and Daniel are blessed
with a new arrival, Lena.
The burial service for Lydia Yoder
is at 2.00 AM.
 
We begin with the weather,
simple thrumming heartbeat.
Then, drawn to the sky,
witness our faith
awakened by its symbols.
The work, of course, is our Gelassenheit,
our sweaty submission,
a God tutoring to muscle,
to heavy footprints in the earth
and head bent low.
 
In practical epiphany,
the cornfields bind the air we breathe
like veins.
The child is born,
ripens everything.
An-old woman dies
so crops won’t have to.
 
 
 
John Grey is Australian born poet, playwright, musician, Providence RI resident since late seventies. He has been published in numerous magazines including Weird Tales, Christian Science Monitor, Greensboro Poetry Review, Poem, Agni, Poet Lore and Journal Of The American Medical Association as well as the horror anthology “What Fears Become” and the science fiction anthology “Futuredaze.” Has had plays produced in Los Angeles and off-off Broadway in New York. Winner of Rhysling Award for short genre poetry in 1999.