Konundrum Engine Literary Review

Observations of the Grass Farmer

the tyranny of water and carbon

these matted roots thin and diligent

in germinal haste

ask the green stalk

why now why bow to me

as if I queen of dirt as if I

mogul of fescue timothy clover

the paradox of

humus too much of both death

and life to secrete milk

of sun to grow claws from residue

earth’s muscle faceted from

communities impossible to poll

a stem bends for many different reasons

Continental

For now the divide knows For now it tells the river which way

And other clues—

Ants dedicated in a small

Stream of sand in the grass and the minute bowing of blades as they

Wrest each set of legs forward & forward

Or, also true, a trout that moves into

Pushes against his watery partner

Building a heat of ages

Ice combs

Or the difference between a stabled and a wild

Horse heath spent & heath captured

—All known garnered memorized

But if the field shifted

As they often do: Early monsoons Late canaries

Or the eleventh hour of a farmer’s crop plan

Half safflower Half soy

So soldierly we would trail So struck in the field

And if the rules of magnetism were bent to favor small

Children joining in a game of

Copper strands Baled manganese Iron pills

And one mineral went missing

What then What would it

Karen Lepri's poems have appeared in 42 Opus and Best New Poets 2006. Karen lives in Boston where she writes and works as an editor. She will be a student in Brown University's MFA program in Poetry in the fall of 2009. She is also Assistant Poetry Editor of Inertia. She has two food blogs called The Urban Kale and The Vegetables Project.

Archived at http://lit.konundrum.com/poetry/leprik_poems.php

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Observations of the Grass Farmer

Continental