Grain, by Dane Hamann

Landscape with Rye Field, Gjern, by Ejnar Nielsen (Denmark) 1898. Editorial apologies that we were unable to find a higher resolution image to show.

Grain

A tsunami
of golden
grain

overwhelms
me, spilling
my heart

across rolling
green hills.
Why did it

take so many
years to see
how easily

I can feed
the land
with myself?

Bury me
as a lonesome
tree

in the bowl
of possibility.
Bury me so

that the bluest
skies are clenched
in the teeth

of the tallest
grasses. Bury me
under every

swelling tongue.
The grain
scratches

its way
skyward, filling
the window

of my body.
Nothing seems
to stop it.

Dane Hamann

Dane Hamann works as an editor for a textbook publisher in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Northwestern University and later served as the poetry editor of TriQuarterly for over five years. His chapbook Q&A was published by Sutra Press and his micro-chapbooks have been included in multiple Ghost City Press Summer Series. His poetry collection, A Thistle Stuck in the Throat of the Sun, was recently published by Kelsay Books.