Jake's Flea Market

ask grandmother
if she remembers the fields that lived
seasoned with stubble before they were
seasoned with the plow
then seasoned with seed

the fields that were   still wet 
with mud out of the womb of winter
newborn when the foal was in her knees
and the lamb was in her limbs

the fields that lived inside her
as she seeded the common
and the chickens filled on the feed

as she pulled onions for the supper stew
out of the garden plot

returned lithe and willowy to the family
cottage and mothered her younger brothers
as the crops that lived inside her
sprouted and saplings filled in the woods

not to stop her gathering 
of straws with the decline of 
the temperatures in her october   

but ask   to see if innocence returns 
with the memories to her eyes