Field Oats
Into the windblown oats, a pattern
is only there because two boys
are walking in there; they are
small green figures in the silver
topped grasses, looking to find
their way further afield. Bent
at the ground, those damaged patches
are what they skirt; they are not fast
like the fox or aware as the deer;
they slowly take their summer
bodies away from the house that is
as big as a box and as dark as a shadow,
that held them all winter long, and go
into the light that is finely diffused
by water and air. And they are touched,
each limb and their trunks, by those
grasses left standing, whistling
by wind and all the wetness being
dried by their green skins.