The night wind forced our windows back, and yet
walking outside, I found you standing there,
the house creaking softly in seas of wheat.
What are you hoping? The wheat is in your hair;
ears, stalks of it billow back at night
and fall like yellow candles in the room.
Sometimes I have supposed that seasons come
like festivals - that year by year this light
will burn our love's dim pinpoint on the plain.
But wheat blows in the windowcracks, and so
oceans of life reduce to lines of rain
lashing wet wheatseeds past the lantern glow.
The dark wind whistles on, and you sit there
letting the lamp throw wheatgold on your hair.

© Robert Bolton