Barley, Corn Poem by Diane Lee Moomey

That was the summer we danced naked rings
around the silo they never used,
(our beads, our smoke)
our rented farmhouse an island,
corn waves tickling our shoreline — danced naked
while the growers of corn
flew low and dusted.

That spring Ralph Palmer and son
had harrowed up, furrowed down, put one
hundred acres into barley. It was early
and winter, not knowing its place, returned
for four days, plunged the red line to thirty,
to twenty nine, to thirty one. Barley
dies at twenty eight and on the third day
Ralph's heart stumbled and fell.

His dog barked all night.

That was the summer we ran naked
between the corn rows, ate his fingerling ears,
thought it's feed corn, not table corn, thought
the cows won't know if they're a dozen ears short.

That's what we thought.

Ralph lived on and so did his barley.
That was the summer we danced naked
on the lawn and I wondered when Ralph Palmer
had last danced naked on the lawn,
before corn drew his life into neat furrows, into terrible furrows.
When, or if—wondered, if corn came to him in his cradle,
if barley tapped him on the shoulder
at high school graduation and said
come with me, boy.

That sometimes happens.