--- S U E   S C A L F

Next to a red barn waves
a field of cornflowers: bits
of sky on stems.  Beyond, there
is a silo, and farther,
in a shallow swale, a spire,
delicate and white above red brick.
Then, fold-on-fold of blue,
the Cumberlands rise, cloud-crowned,
at the gap where Boone opened the wilderness
Even then cornflowers, blue as faded denim,
blew in the wind sweeping down the mountains;
even then clouds dipped at twilight
and slipped pale fingers into the hollows,
cool and damp as graves of pioneers.

But that was then.
Now my heart is a beak
sharpened on granite.
In a hundred years these mountains
will lift their heads
and other eyes observe
blackbirds sleek as pokeberries
in summer rain.