(Evelyn Maddix Simpson- Febuary 27, 1934-July 25, 2006)
today the open spaces billow
and the ornate silences break in cane
the roads unused lay like sleep
between this year’s tall seasons
sunrise was nothing more than birds
a scatter of crows at the sun’s early edge
then gone as an hour moves across a road
the cornfields inarticulate with beauty
we have not lost what makes the world beautiful
this valley harvested by the beautiful workers
but we have lost who made us beautiful
our mother and the incantation of her laughter
it’s the mystery of the almond fields
those dark vistas deep as memory flecked with dreams
the absences in the farmers fields
my mother’s still bed at the unused hour
thousands of miles of daylit world ahead
whole seas of breath blooming on still water
traveling without compass or honing point
in the widest emptiest country in the world
