Barely dawn, the horizon blood red
Heat rises from the cornfields in waves
The high pitched trill of crickets rises as well

Anita and I are driving into town
On a bone white gravel road
winding through farms
Both of us with an arm out the window
Trying to cut through the air

Dog days have arrived
Winter’s hard ground, once replaced by
Spring and waist deep mud, now
Fried solid again by 16 hours of sunshine

It is a cycle, the pulse of this land
Heat-cold, dry-wet
Mid-continent’s version of the tides
An ebb for every flow.

thanks to Brocken, for inspiration