Crossing the Canterbury Plains...

The field shines with the light of cut corn
and quite far off
a solitary pine needles a solitary cloud
where nothing vexes the sky
that's clear to the mountains and beyond.

When the sun shines
even autumn's haughty out here
where a leaf might be blown a hundred miles
and end up somewhere much the same.

That's plains, they
make you bound to live
within the bounds of where you are;
no next valley to explore,no nearby hills to scale
looking for a hint of promised land.

We may travel to the ends of the earth
and back again
and never know whether
the beetle hunched between stalks
feels sorrow, or if distant clouds
quivering with white light
drift forever.

~ Brian Turner, Crossing the Canterbury Plains