Tami Haaland: "A Colander of Barley"

The smell, once water has rinsed it,
is like a field of ripe grain, or the grain held
in a truck, and if you climb the steel side,
one foot lodged on the hubcap, the other
on the wheel, and pull your body upward,
your hands holding to tarp hooks, and lift toes
onto the rim of the truck box, rest your ribs
against the side, you will see beetles
and grasshoppers among the hulled kernels.
Water stirs and resurrects harvest dust:
sun beating on abundance, the moist heat
of grain collected in steel, hands
plunging and lifting, the grain spilling back.

"A Colander of Barley" by Tami Haaland, from When We Wake in the Night. © WordTech Editions, 2012.  

Photography credit: detail of an image by Kalyn Denny (originally color).

Kalyn Denny

Kalyn Denny

Kalyn Denny

Kalyn Denny