Field of Grass

A field of grass sailed out of Guinea, heads lolling in the sun
 A seed moved on the sea
 Pale gold and green on the wide blue wave
 Dipping wildly in the high storms
 A month's passage to Charleston
 "A miracle", said the vague reports of agents
 A plague of frogs in reverse
 To see the land lifted from its native rocks
 Splashed down in the Atlantic
 No ropes or anchors could hold the weight over the horizon
 The swish of wind and wheat, lost in the ocean's crash and a morning wail
 Had a hard passage, saltwater crusting the roots
 Wind flattening the stalks
 Heath scattered to the unsupporting wave
 The whisper of leaves became a cry
 "All this way, through the betrayal of the earth, for what?
 Only for the harvest"
 Act of the jealous god
 A cruel whim, a wagering jest
 I'd say it's poker night
 But could the will of man lift whole sections
 Root and sod like a tornado
 And crash them down on old Jed's barn?
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 And finding plenty, the scythe cuts down a hundred bending heads in a pass
 Laying the bodies parallel in sheaves
 Prop them up as if alive
 To represent life in our tales
 Amidst the vegetal slaves and their thousands
 Because we feel at the mercy of the gods
 Here are their graves, where the roots reach down into the solid earth again
 Through a bitter winter, the wind tears at the grass
 Grey rippling the white sea, looking for the green ocean it flew across the world
 By next spring, more of us will lie in a field like this
 Who fed on the bread of the last harvest
 We claim to control the weather
 Some for credit, some for blame
 The waves don't tell the wind to blow
 The wind blows over them
 Refusing old miracles
 Pulled anew to its chest