Sitting outside in the sun
on a balmy April afternoon,
I tilt the chair backwards,
close my eyes.

I remember a young boy:
In between the starkness
of dark dairy mornings
and nights weary of work,

the collie and I walked the fields.
On a Saturday afternoon,
sunny but cool in the wind
of a March not yet spring,

We drifted through the leanings of alfalfa.
I lay down in the early growth,
turned my face to the sun,
felt its warmth.

I lay there,
hearing the brushing of the wind
against the long soft stems,
went to sleep in the sweeping

of God’s own whispering,
“All of work
will one day
have its reward.”

I woke to the duties
of a farm’s coming dusk,
shed the husk of sleep,
called the collie for the gathering.

I no longer wake to darkness,
nor walk the fields as I did back then,
but I have heard that comforting murmur
ever since.

H. Arnett
4/15/10