You Just Never Damn Know

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Highway Hypothesis

by Maxine Kumin

Nothing quite rests the roving eye
like this long view of sloping fields
that rise to a toyshop farmhouse
with matchstick barns and sheds.
A large yellow beetle spits silage
onto an upturned cricket while
several inch-high cars and trucks
flow soundlessly up the spitcurl drive.

Bucophilia, I call it—
nostalgia over a pastoral vista—
where for all I know the farmer
who owns it or rents it just told his
wife he'd kill her if she left him and
she did and he did and now here come
the auctioneer, the serious bidders
and an ant-train of gawking onlookers.

Comments

  1. RudeeJuly 13, 2009 at 9:07 PM

    Yes, but sometimes the grass really is greener.

    ReplyDelete
  2. OwenJuly 14, 2009 at 6:21 PM

    Red roofs and colza (rapeweed?) fields, if I had to guess, I'd say somewhere in France ? Where divorce is running well over 50% I believe. Fortunately they don't all up dead or murderers...

    ReplyDelete
  3. La FraméricaineJuly 17, 2009 at 6:27 AM

    Nice...

    ReplyDelete

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Hey, thanks for your thoughts and your time:>)

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