by Kathryn Stripling Byer

    The only clouds

    forming are crow clouds，

    the only shade， oaks

    bound together in a tangle of oak

    limbs that signal the wind

    coming， if there is any wind

    stroking the flat

    fields， the flat

    swatch of corn.

    Far as anyone's eye can see， corn's

    dying under the sky

    that repeats itself either as sky

    or as water

    that won't remain water

    for long on the highway： its shimmer

    is merely the shimmer

    of one more illusion that yields

    to our crossing as we ourselves yield

    to our lives， to the roots

    of our landscape. Pull up the roots

    and what do we see but the night

    soil of dream， the night

    soil of what we call

    home. Home that calls

    and calls

    and calls.