the ground would get hard enough to bounce your boot heel,
and the wheat would start to turn. Then the waiting.
And the watching. And the walking through the fields,
beards brushing your arms. Seeing for yourself
how the grain separates from the head in your hand,
how the kernel feels between your fingertips,
what it says when you crush it between your teeth.
It's all ahead of you, standing in the field --
dust-covered, sweat-streaked. Noise and vibration,
hands beaten and shaped. Diesel and grease.
And the smell of the wheat -- it is, in the field
before the cutting starts,
potential and hope and big as you imagine.
And the more you walk from the road into the field
the more of it there is, the more of it is yours.
The longer you stay, and wander and feel,
sample and taste and wonder what it means,
the more you want to linger and make it all last.
Listen to it move, watch the waves in the wheat.
Walk between the rows and run it through your hands.