Silence

        Ribbons of perfect corn

        roll over the hills and stretch for miles

        devoid of milk, pig

        and other weeds.  Rivers of Roundup

        Ready beans undulate

        pest free in the summer breeze.  Acres

         of sunflowers

         bow their heads, yellow faces

         sad and in obedience

         to Dupont and Monsanto; you can almost hear

         their silent prayers

         reach forever.

         In the meadows

         of long grasses, in the orchards

         of red apple and down the roads

         of hard gravel, between posts

         strung with barbed wire, in the thistle towers

         and along the infinite lines for electric power,

         there is silence, a silence unbroken

         by wren or sparrow,

         by lark, finch or whippoorwill,

         no arguments heard from cow birds,

         killdeers or blue jays, only silence,

         for even the crows have up and moved

          to the city.