The sky is light gray.
The ground is dark gray.
The trees have no color,
Because there are no trees.
The fields are muted,
in both senses: sound and sight.
The cold’s color would be gray as well,
Though it is colder at night.
Machines run treads into the earth,
Cleaving mounds of mud and grass.
Pressing seeds deep
The farmer hopes to sow.
City dwellers look down their nose
Feigning regality, stuffy mood.
What happens if I tell them,
It’s out here we get our food.
That’s the scene I set;
Drab and uninteresting.
Winter fields as flat
as thoughts of nothing are long.
The pools of shallow water
reflect up, looking like voids.
All you hear is your head,
Because there is no noise.
I lay on my back, at loss and wonder why,
Staring, I look up; underneath an Iowa sky.
Tyler Strittmatter 