Communion

Grayly, unfocused,

I left the highway for the graveyard

Of the summer corn;

Away from bizarre headlights dissecting

The wet twilight,

Into the sharp stubble where

A dank wind rattled the bones

Of harvest.

From the invisible grass

A mottled rabbit with drooping ears

Padded around the puddles

And disappeared again

Into the brittle spears,

Damply

Silently.

A black barn swelled out of the fog;

In the thickening dark

A vague terror.

I walked

Fearfully

With joy

Into the fields.

I submerged with the dusk;

There I sat upon a wet rock

With the warm rabbits and the cold rain

Until my cold heart

Warmed

And I wept.

Cynthia Buell Thomas