Seeds and Seeding

We're shaking seeds into their furrows
and wonder how they stay asleep
for years. The clouds this afternoon
are heavy poke-sacks, flocks of deep

pockets full of black and fat with rain.
The night will fill with waking—
children staring at the thunder
in the ceiling; nightbirds shrilling and staking

their claims in the longer calms; bush beans,
a second row of beets, beginning
to unsleep: the rain, the wildness, doing
and undoing, slow hands unpinning

night from the background, like a flag
meant for a ceremony where the part
we're meant to play is a mystery,
and everything is about to start.

Copyright © 2009 Nathaniel Perry All rights reserved
from Beloit Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission