04-12-2022, 03:55 AM
Essence of Reaper
A smell, a sense of new-mown hay
fresh, fragrant with a mossy dampness
which one feels will shortly turn
to rankness but has yet to lose
its air of growing green, of silage–
fodder for a rising dream.
But silos are not merely places
for sweet fancies but for holding
hydrazine and other compounds
known to soldiers as nerve gas
which smell of new-mown hay, it’s said–
just before they knock you dead.
A smell, a sense of new-mown hay
fresh, fragrant with a mossy dampness
which one feels will shortly turn
to rankness but has yet to lose
its air of growing green, of silage–
fodder for a rising dream.
But silos are not merely places
for sweet fancies but for holding
hydrazine and other compounds
known to soldiers as nerve gas
which smell of new-mown hay, it’s said–
just before they knock you dead.
Non-practicing atheist