Dark Hay

June grasses had burgeoned to monumental hay: slabs and beds
Printed in eights by the baler's sledge following its green coil
Of concentric windrows like stone spirals at New Grange or Radmilja

To a last comma near the midpoint of the O
Where those eight dolmens stand at Giant's Ring. Then stacked
Into stooks "like lambdas," they darkened

to outlines of Mayan temples gathering shadow
In the late light breaking
Low from floes and plateaux, dark quadrilaterals

On the lit immaculate nap of shaven stubble
That reminded me that art is dark
For all its shining genesis. Seeing in stone the image

Of hay, I saw too the vision polarized to God's glyph
Vanishing midpoint into nothing
(Swan-necked, double helix, bull's eyes) on stelae swimming

In grass at the limestone necropolis on the road to Stolac
That passes the dumps of its razed mosques. Then, pausing to smoke,
Two men stood waiting to upend the last bales of an evening's work.

Copyright © 2003 Chris Agee All rights reserved
from First Light
Dedalus Press / Dufour Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission