The Financial Poet

I.

I walked the fields yesterday,
the wide, once-amber stretch of them,
where wheat once bent like a choir
singing low to sun and soil.

But the fields were fallow now:
husks brittle to nothing,
stalks listing in wind like
old men leaning on canes of dust.

And I thought of us—
of this country that once believed
bread was a birthright,
that corn could be counted as covenant,
that no table would stand unlaid
while we were able-bodied, able-hearted,
able to feed one another.

Yet the silos stand sealed,
and the shelves go bare in quiet kitchens.
Pantries dim their lights at dusk,
waiting for trucks that don’t come.

The children do not cry loudly.
Hunger is polite at first.

It waits—
in the soft part of a morning stomach,
where last night’s dinner would be.

We are a nation of waiting now.

Waiting for signatures,
for chambers to gavel,
for a vote to break like rain.

But the fields are too long without water.

And the grain remembers
what it once was.

II.

I found myself standing in the market line,
cart light as a winter sparrow.
Someone ahead of me swiped for SNAP,
card flicking once, twice—
machine blinking like a dying firefly.

Declined.

No announcement.
No siren.
Just a silence that settled
over her like frost on grass.

She did not look at anyone.
She simply stepped back,
hands folded over the empty place
in her basket, in her belly.

I wanted to gather her in my arms,
like a field gathers fog,
soft and covering.

But hunger makes everything sharp.

We forget that the body is a country.
We forget the stomach is a drum
calling for aid,
calling for neighbor,
calling for mercy.

We forget it is easy
to sound like we are fine
while the ribs begin to show.

III.

In towns made of brick and river light,
we used to say community
with the steady faith of Sunday hymns.

Now, volunteers count cans
like rosary beads,
whispering inventory like prayer:

Just enough for tomorrow.
Not enough for next week.

And still—
we turn our faces toward hope,
toward the small miracle of donation bins,
the kindness of hands stocking shelves late,
the stranger who remembers
how it feels to be held by a meal.

This is where the republic survives—
not in marble halls or televised chambers—
but in the passing of bread
from one palm to another,
as though gravity itself insists
we must lift one another to stand.

IV.

So let them call the fields empty.
Let them say the funding is frozen.
Let them balance budgets on the backs
of hollowed-out harvests.

We know better.

We have walked the fallow ground
and still felt seed stirring
beneath the crust of frost.

We have seen hunger,
and we have not turned away.

We are the grain that grows back.

See how we rise—
not in anthem,
but in action.

See how the table lengthens
when we decide it must.

Let them argue in rooms far from the plow.
We will feed one another while they do.

The dream is not gone.
It is waiting.

Like a field in winter,
it holds its breath.

Until we return with water.
Until we return with hands.
Until we return.