sestina

I watch my grandmother
plunge her hands
deep into the earth,
watch how the wind
tosses her skirt in circles
as she bends to plant the corn

in rows. Before the corn
grows I watch my grandmother
walk the garden in circles
and raise her hands
to speak with the wind,
and bend down toward the earth

that cradles her knees, the earth
that each year gives us corn.
And when the stalks grow tall enough to wind
through unseen, I follow my grandmother
and fill the basket as she hands
me ear after ear of tight, golden circles

and I begin to see the pattern of circles
in everything—in the great circle of earth
that becomes the round palms of hands
which hold inside a single ear of corn
hundreds of circles speaking one grandmother’s
language for love. Then, together we wind

through the rows of stalks rustling in the wind
until our path through the garden circles
back to the place where my grandmother
first prepared the soil of the earth
to grow the ears of sweet golden corn
that now warm our hands

at the table. Will these hands,
I wonder, speak with the wind
and bring forth ears of corn
in rows of tight, golden circles
that rise from the earth
like a hundred perfect suns, like grandmother’s?

My hands, too, will know these circles,
speak with the wind and tend the earth
and grow this corn for grandmother.

April 8, 2003M. Beth Keefauver

Beth Keefauver teaches English at Western Carolina University and lives in Asheville. When she is not teaching, she is outdoors as much as possible. [keefauver@email.wcu.edu]