Boaz

by Thomas Banks (August 2024)

Arles: View from the Wheat Fields (Vincent van Gogh, 1888)

 

Returning from our harvesting,
We put our weariness away
With food and wine as evening fell,
Freed from the burden of the day.
–
And after sunset, when the men
Had all departed from my door,
I went to sort the gathered grain
Alone upon the threshing-floor.
–
There, as I set about my work,
The moonlit grain was silver-white,
No sound except my cracking flail—
A night like any other night.
–
And when the work was finally done,
I lay down by the piled wheat
And slept and dreamed, and woke to find
My new life smiling by my feet.
–

 

Table of Contents

Thomas Banks has taught literature and Latin for many years in Idaho, Montana, and North Carolina, where he currently lives. Other writings of his have appeared in First Things and the St. Austin Review.

Follow NER on Twitter @NERIconoclast