Ghost Pastoral

Wind collects the sound of bells,

soft pearls of water sprouting on leaves.

Stores of root vegetables soften

beneath my touch. Lilac coating

The decrepit shed whose sagging

roof still shelters me, less warning

than spell. Its glass-matted floors,

rusted faucet. Where the cows

once gathered for water.

Where maples tossed their samaras

like confetti. Hovering

like a hummingbird at the edge

of my adolescence, the promise

of a third Chicagoland airport—

a shadow over the shed, the fields,

this pasture. Over what I thought

was natural—our monoculture corn,

drainage ditches, even the poison

my father perfumed through

the barn slats to kill the bees:

I never experienced the world

as anything but ruined and beautiful.