Letter to My Sons, Whom I Have Left

This morning when I awoke,
I arose from my bed where my wife was sleeping,
Putting on muck boots
To walk in the fields with a cup of coffee.

The new-plowed soil was soft under my feet,
Rock ground to powder,
And I stumbled over a tine of an old plow
That was rising up from beneath the ground.

Rusted, caked with clay,
Serpentine, a snakelike sheath
Tipped with a triangular tooth to tear
The soil.

And I imagined that at one moment,
Two decades ago, or three or four,
As the farmer pulled his plow across Her Body,
In full mastery of machine,

One singular tip, this plow that I hold in my hands,
Could resist no longer the pull of its Mother,
From whence it came,
Iron, pulled from the Womb,

Refined in fire,
Melted and molded,
Bent and extruded,
Sharpened and chiseled,

And fastened to the yolk
To be pulled by tractor driven by farmer,
A single plow among dozens,
Ripping the Earth.

Until one moment,
When he could no longer bear the weight of tearing,
And instead was torn,
To be buried in her womb once more.

Falling into dust and ashes,
Melting into soil and clay,
Dissolving into iron and oxide,
To feed Her for a thousand years.