Sunset Over Corn...
It's a small post-industrial city,
Like most of them are around here,
"Back home."
The ones that mattered in my life,
They still have small factories a bit,
Restaurants and dentists,
Places I used to know,
Places where those places used to be.
Restaurants have changed names,
Menus,
Staff,
Quality.
I came here for the living,
And also for the dead.
There's moss on some of the headstones,
I ruined a towel cleaning the letters,
So they can be seen again.
After all the decades,
At least that.
You can never really go home again,
Only in your head and heart.
Some of the faces I saw,
Some of the words I heard in person,
That might not happen again.
What I'm in store for looks like a hard road,
Will keep me off other roads until I don't know when.
There are no real cornfields where I'm going,
Not like the ones that surround these cities and towns,
The pines and waters of the Great Lakes must sustain me in memory.
This may be my last country highway sunset over corn.
My heart is torn,
But I know where I belong now.
Some things will whisper to me forever.
AquarianM
By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 08/07/2026