Corn

my tar-black head turns white
in a cryptic transformation
gray creeps in stealthily
like the monster cloud's shadow onto a sunny field of cool green corn
the corn in the green of its prime
and the grace of its lush brilliance
and the itch of its potency and fecundity
soon turns the brown of the used and the spent
and the sigh of breeze and supple leaves in neighborly chitchat
gives way
to the raspy crunch of dried stalks under harvesters' feet
the green corn turns the brown of one sent
to be integrated with the soil of one's birth


Arthur Musah