Field With Wheat Stacks, by Barbara Crooker

Field With Wheat Stacks, by Vincent Van Gogh (Netherlands). 1890.

Field With Wheat Stacks

He fell in love with a simple field
of wheat, and I’ve felt this way, too;
melted, like a pool of mint chip
ice cream, foolishly in love,
even though we know
how it turns out in the end:
snicked by the scythe, burnt
in the furnace of the August
sun, threshed, separated, kernel
from chaff. But right now,
it’s spring, and the wheat aligns
in orderly rows: Yellow green.
Snap pea. Sage. Celadon.
His brush strokes pile on,
wave after wave, as the haystacks
liquefy, slide off the canvas,
roll on down to the sea.

Barbara Crooker

This poem is from the author's book, Les Fauves, C&R Press, 2017.

Barbara Crooker is a poetry editor for Italian-Americana, and has published eight full collections and twelve chapbooks.  Her latest book is Les Fauves (C&R Press, 2017).  She has won a number of awards, including the WB Yeats Society of New York Award, the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award, and three Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships.  A VCCA fellow, she has published widely in such journals as Nimrod, Poet Lore, Rattle, The Green Mountains Review, The Denver Quarterly, and The Beloit Poetry Journal. website:  www.barbaracrooker.com