Five Poems

The Atatürk Factory
It was Spring; everything sprouted and spread.
I stepped out with a halo of mozzies
and miles of sugarbeet buried in one field
and miles of sunflowers climbing out of the other.

A hot Puch pursued a rabbit. Two tractors grazed.
Hazelnut shrubs in a line clicked greenly.
They sounded like soles on the gravel and I followed them.
A cricket wound itself up in the grass.

At the top of the hill was a myrtle bush
waving its arms and sprouting, a bosky guide,
but waving them everywhere. Whatever it was
over there, I thought, it had to be good.

I puffed and panted a bit. And there it was:
miles of Ataturks lined up in one field
...