Creature In The Corn Poem by Leo Yankevich

My grandson sees a creature in the corn,
a wolf at odds with fate, paws clasped in prayer.
Today he will have more than thin despair,
than dreams inside a kettle, old and worn.
He does not know the pain of being born
into real hunger, enough to know its stare,
how wolves will jump to snap their teeth at air
from which the ghosts of ptarmigan are torn.
My grandson dreams an end to every tale:
The hungry wolf will find new kinds of prey,
having left for good through fields of gold
to feast on fishes in a living well.
My grandson eats my words, although I pray
he’ll never know the taste of bitter cold.