Summer

       In the cornfields
       of Coles County
       stones wait
       to become rocks,
       and rocks wait
       to become trees,
       and the trees
       wait for cremation

       their ashes
       rising like old men
       rising from beds
       of ferns and ivy
       slow as the git go
       steady as the rain
       on the first day
       of carnival
       in that summer
       when they first
       came startled
       by the angel
       beauty of hands
       husking corn


John Guzlowski‘s writing has appeared in North American Review, Ontario Review, Nimrod, Salon, and many other journals and reviews. Garrison Keillor read his poem “What My Father Believed” on Writers Almanac. Guzlowski’s fifth book of poems, Echoes of Tattered Tongues (Aquila Polonica, 2016) was selected as a highlighted book for this year’s Publishers Weekly Poetry Month issue.
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