Perceptions, then and now

Once, I imagined in the smiles of passersby
an acknowledgment of our mutual devotion,
as if it burned so brightly as not to be missed.
I saw us in the exuberance of the couple
who paused to kiss in the pale yellow lamplight
of a glittering new footbridge.
Our passion, like theirs, cut joyfully
through the harbor's dampening fog.
I easily transposed us onto the forms
of the pair who embraced as they passed through
a college parking lot, as if unable
to take too many steps, without reconnecting.
I saw us ten years hence in the quiet
joyful confidence of a couple long partnered,
still loving.
What a difference a moment makes
in the midst of so many hundreds of moments
before.

Corn Stalk Battalion

Scalped, stripped, ramrod straight
they stand at attention in rows
that stretch across a cornfield
of foot-high golden stubble.
Summer's harvest remnants,
they stand, as if waiting to march,
to march without thought,
each stalwart stalk blindly
following the lead of another.

Like a thousand blonde
five-o'clock shadows
or soft, cool, summer buzz cuts,
like corn-fresh marines,
they're suspended somewhere
between fecundity and sterility,
row after row of sentinels
without voice, without power
plodding, compliant, persevering.

Sun beats down, dries the morning dew.
Cool breezes rustle parchment husks
like flags draped over returning coffins.
Pummeling sleet will freeze them,
redeeming rays will thaw and ease,
thaw and ease the constant burden
of the wait through winter's buildup,
its shortening days and ever colder nights
lancing deeply into the heart of each of them.

Soon, deep, deep snow will blanket
the lot, pile flake after flake
with winter rising, rising. until one day
they will all disappear--the whole battalion--
deadened corn stalks abandoned to the coming winter,
with only their tips visible, but soon to be buried
beneath a silent, suffocating siege.