Cornstalks

by Jeff Gundy

Every end is a beginning. When everything seems lost,
Bald cypress finally plucked clean, empty bottle

Tossed in the weeds, muddy water escaping
Under the bridge, the deep hum and stir continue.

Time like a cracked door in a great wall,
Like a broken shingle that can maybe be glued

Back in place, like a letter from a stranger
Who somehow found me in his dream.

Like the impossible child reciting Billy Collins
And stacking his dinosaurs at the same time.

Like Allen County’s last ring-necked pheasant,
Plodding down the waterway bawling for a mate,

Trailing its prodigal tail. Like the broken cornstalks
In the fields, waiting for the results, resting

Their hollow bones. Like the vast March moon,
Distant and puzzled as the face of our lost mother

Who has forgotten our number, forgotten where
She left the phone, forgotten who she meant to call

Jeff Gundy is a Distinguished Poet in Residence at Bluffton University, and has published a dozen books of poetry and essays.

Photography by Kenneth Godoy