POETRY

IN PRAISE OF FLAT COUNTRY

By

Richard Luftig

These brown hayfields

are threadbare rugs

and farther up the graveled country

road, front rows of corn block

my view like a lady in the theater

wearing a big hat.

What’s left of the autumn

grasses are melancholy

and yellow, and you know

that off somewhere rocks

of carnelian are flashing

in some swollen creek

and newly hewn duckweed

rushes downstream.

Goldrenrod in their final throes

are showing off in all

its flash and indolence

while a late, northern sky

leaks sunlight through

dun-colored clouds and swallows

soar in solemn flight.

And I? I do not need

any plats, or maps or car

GPS to tell me that

I am in my state again.