How we love your legs, how
in the midst of plenty
we have learned to know

the hardship of hatred.
How your blade cuts us,
and the hooves of your stock tread

our stalks to mud. In spring's
gentle sunlight we emerge from clover
and grow lush beside that other spring,

the one of water you would wish
to lie down beside
were it not for us.

When you burn us in the field
we rise to the sky
in orange flame and yield

a smoke that blots the sun.
How then the wind may conspire
to turn us again

toward you. We cover you once
more, no longer in the green itch
you hated, but the darkness.