Harrowing

While Silas sings slow and quiet as the sunrise
a spider’s line dragged across the barn door
surprises his tongue, yet he still sings on key.
In the field clayey wakes follow the tractor.
At day’s end he traverses these wrinkles and longs
for Devorah, dead and gone. He thinks of pomegranates—
not much to them—remembers that he feeds her seeds
one by one to keep her through the line of seasons
in this world under heaven. She’ll stay as long as He wills.
The thought of that fruit still brings Silas to his knees.