Only the wheat moved. I did not move not even my eyes. Say
that I was stunned, staring as if I had looked at the Medusa.
Looked impossibly. Looking could not make meaning.

Wind lifted my hair and I lifted my eyes. Leaves were golden, oak
I think. Fall I think (cerulean sky). My feet steadied as if
bound. Aren’t we bound at least by consequence?

To have turned things around. Lies truth and truth lies.
Within. Upon which so much.
The ochre fields bluing as shadows trailed

behind towering darkening clouds. Bringing to mind.
Bringing up.
Wind ruffling my dress, my eyes narrowing with water.

Cynthia Hogue
from her book Or Consequence
Red Hen Press, 2010

Used with permission of the poet.