1

In the fall, after harvest, the farmer spreads manure

on the fields.  All summer the shit collects

in channels, falling in heaps

from rows of bovine backs.  Each day

the chains revolve, scraping the brown ditch

clean.  Now the slop, dished from its sloping pit

to the spreader, flings itself through chilled air.

2

The shit stays still all winter,

frozen over empty fields.

Faintly, it remembers warmer days

as snow and ice fall, an insulating cover.

Isolated from the world outside,

it turns inward.  Day and night move

overhead; clouds burst and burn

across the skies; families huddle

around meager fires.  The earth

groans with cold.  The rich decline 

and the poor grow old

as kingdoms rise and fall, 

but the shit waits, waits, secure

inside decay and dormancy.

3

The farmer wakes from hibernation,

stretches, yawns, and takes the tractor

through the fields.  While daffodils bud

and tulips rise, seed falls on fertilized soil.

Snow melt and rain soak ready ground

and the hope of harvest roots again.

The people dream of vegetables, fresh

tomatoes, and grain for every starving soul,

then wake to the feel of earth

and the faint scent of worms.