Kelly's Lament

I fear for my spring wheat.

Will it grow hard and tall

or head out small?

Will it succumb to heat,

drought and dust

or rot and rust?

Will it be flooded out

or flattened by the hail?

I am beset

by doubt and debt.

Surely the wheat will fail.

Timothy Murphy

From The Deed of Gift, Story Line

Press, © 1998.  Reprinted by

permission of the author and

Story Line Press, Ashland, Oregon.