Traveling by car with a mattress in back
today’s testament 
you getting up 
before dawn
to meet the morning rise

work clothes 
washed the night before
folded band in band 
laid out neatly on the top shelf

you standing in a long dark hall
pulling on fresh overalls
latching the loops over each shoulder

tugging on your 
work boots
and stepping outside into the cold springtime air

stopping to see the acres and acres of deeply rich earth 
and you taking a field-plow into hand

you can do this
you can follow the straight rows ahead
without worry
which way to turn

then kneeling down between the rugged burrows 
finding a place to scoop out a nest and placing each new seed

covering them over
ever so gently
with moist blackened 
Minnesota earth 

hoping for what takes hold 
once invisible 
incremental roots can start out from the edges

somehow you know
you get up and walk back to the farmhouse calling for help 
shook but not beaten 

you take hold
hand in hand 
steady one step at a time
finding your way again