A Small Town in its Last Summer

( after Wendell Berry )  

There is a darkness that changes a town.  
And shades of transgressions that remain,  
even after the night has relinquished.  
The pale, fading crescent of its moon  
watches the same lone farmer,  
out before the first streaks of dawn.  
He carries a bucket in each hand,  
heading to the barn on his farm  
on the outskirts of a town  
who’s residents were raised  
on a privilege of fear,  
King James verse, and the Almanac.  
He follows his quiet thoughts, and shadow  
that stretches before each step he takes  
for the early morning milking.  
Low-lying mists hover, and  
slowly curl among gravestones,  
and the rest of the town begins to  
reluctantly show signs of stirring.  
Shaking off, while the sun rises up,  
the inertia and shame, in its own waste,  
like the pigeons in his hay loft.