Poems by Royal Rhodes

 

Royal Rhodes is a retired educator. His work has appeared in various literary journals. He lives now in a small village, close to a nature conservancy, a green cemetery, and Amish farms.






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The Bread Farmers

Across the fields in rows
are loaves of bread the reddish
light of afternoon
had heated rising up
from furrows soft and moist
a recent rain insured

Girls with skirts that billowed
hitched them at their waists
and bent with wicker scoops
to harvest loaf on loaf
the sons who turned the earth
had left and left for good

Instead of heads of grain
bronzed and cut and winnowed
loaves rectangular
and brown were gathered up
before the lines of ants
working row by row
could transport them below

A photograph a local
farmer took displayed
a solemn family
a rectilinear
arrangement at table
covered with a cloth
on which a loaf was placed
their eyes looked out at us
while we beheld the bread
soon in broken pieces
to feed themselves and guests

While birds and insects gleaned
the crumbs like fallen seeds
waiting to regrow
and fill the fields again
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WHAT THE OHIO KNOWS

Down to the old Ohio
the water drains from fields
as I wait and watch.

Down to the old Ohio
a million hidden outlets
carry the rain as I wait.

Down to the old Ohio
the swollen rivers run,
as I watch my face in the stream.

Down to the old Ohio
with moon by night, by day the sun
water carries darkness and light.

Down to the old Ohio
where I left you, lost you,
the water is first to forget.

Down to the old Ohio
everything carrying life
moves and, moving, transforms.