Tuesday, July 14, 2009


Bobby's corn


Each year it got harder to put the picker on

the last conversation echoed in the shed

Bobby turned off the M

Robert slid in the bolts


"You be careful over there"

(unsaid,"my war was hell")

"Don't worry Dad, I'll be home next year

in time to get the corn out."

(unsaid, "you made it so will I")

not to be


Bobby's name in marble at the Court House Square

dad and mom replaying the conversation

over morning coffee and tears

the pain so plain the neighbors knew

the corn

"Bobby's corn"


when a son's folded flag

was followed by heart broken fathers flag

leaving a field to be harvested

and then seed sown


a widow and a renter


whoever plants that field

still plants Bobby's corn

the men at the elevator

asking since '69, "who gets to plant it

this year? Bobby's corn?"



By Phil Specht

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