Harvest Festival
Rent from DeepDyve- Harvest Festival
One night, the quarterback slaps the horse’s assand the hayride veers into a kerosene lantern,hanging from a post. In our yard, the sheepdogis chained to the water pump. He paws a crescent
moon of dust. The threshers crouch in locked-upsheds and barns; the men slump beneath tables.What is this ritual of push and pull? The reapingwe insist upon, always, to validate having sown?
There is no moonlight by which to fight the fire.There is no homecoming without a rivalmascot, strung up from the goalpost and torchedto rally the spirits. No scarecrow without straw. [End Page 70]
J. P. Grasser’s poetry explores the diverse regions he has called home, most persistently his family’s fish hatchery in Brady, Nebraska. He studied English and Creative Writing at Sewanee: The University of the South and received his M.F.A in poetry from John Hopkins University, where he currently teaches. His work appears or is forthcoming from Crab Orchard Review, Quarterly West, Ecotone, Salt Hill, West Branch Wired, Ninth Letter Online, and Redivider, among others. His website can be found at www.jpgrasser.com.
