Used to be what you’d see

from back roads was random  

bits of whatall going on

pig lot wood lot cattle grazing

whitewashed fences hay barns

corn cathedrals looping on and on

but now an open swath of road

ravels away in the moonlight

slow curves mown through the land 

with ditches to gather the runoff

country in its baffled emptiness 

lain open to invaders

with tumbleweed piling high

against barbed wire till one 

windblown survivor spills over

Paul Hunter

Paul Hunter is a Seattle poet and letterpress publisher who carves hardwood blocks to go with his lead type.  He won the Washington State Book Award for “Breaking Ground,” his first book of farming poems.