First, get yourself a field:

fill it with alpacas, a couple of goats,

a horse or two or maybe a dozen,

build a shed, dreaming of Noah’s ark,

invite your friends over for a beer,

and because it’s fall,

and in the roll of dice, the day turns out to be a cold one,

build a fire in your fire pit

because everyone knows how to sit around a fire,

add or subtract layers of clothing,

irritation, love.

This isn’t so very hard

if we don’t care if conversation lapses

or someone is ignorant enough

not to be us.

Goodness?

It spits out of the alpacas,

hangs in the air,

mixes with music and the tacos on your tongue,

coats the muddy remains of a corn field after days of blessed rain,

crunches the red corn cobs under your feet

as you make your way back to your truck.

The road you cross is dark but it doesn’t matter:

nothing’s coming over the crest of hill,

nothing will mow you down,

only the rise of moon.

Amy Segerstrom’s poems and stories have appeared in Spilled Ink and Second Thoughts and Goodbye to Lonesome Valley as well as Volume One online, The Rochester Post Bulletin, Gypsy Cab, and Prometheus: A Student Art Journal of UW-Stout. A resident of Mondovi, she appreciates the goodness of strangers when shopping at Fleet Farm.