Iowa

I remember the quiet of the afternoons bathed
in the lush smell of humidity
and lulling songs of the cicada,

the green that was so vibrant it was almost black,
the scent of life springing fertile
from the earth, and a sky so blue
it was washed white before my watery eyes.

For hours I would lay there on that hill
outside of the small town where I grew up,
wrapped in the blanket of the gentle wind
and the teeming grass while I counted
the clouds and dreamt of far off places.

Only now do I fully comprehend
the charm of those moments
when I was young and protected
from a cruel world
by that land that always wore
its working clothes so proudly.