The Amber Yield

By Elaine Lattimore

Ensign Poetry Contest Winner Third Place

Against the wind he struggled

To reap the honest grain

of hard-sown seeds.

Worn,

among unruly weeds, he wept

remembering self-promises unkept,

and golden, unplucked fruit

on heavy bough

surrounded by quick thorn

and thistle now.

So darkly, through the glass he sees,

Forgetting face-to-face

which later comes,

Yearning for established trees

long-distant from this foreign place.

My brother,

sorrow cannot show

upon what kindly greening field,

plowed by time and weary tread,

awakening from dormancy of years,

sprout and grow,

bloom

and amber yield,

the seeds you dropped unnoticed,

and watered with your tears.