earth note 724

highway 50 kansas

if you pound on a rusty grain silo

and it echoes back empty

you might be in kansas

or somewhere else

where the cost of planting and water

can bury you before you start

but there's still a sharp full sun

bursting down on clean steel rails

like a message coming home

arriving before the train

roaring past the once living canopy

waiting for the sunflowers

--- e b bortz