Good Growing Country Especially for Corn

Photograph by Jean-Michel Clajot

My father’s hands are like a map, each scar has a story, he’s not prepared to tell me but anytime I point to one of them, he tells me about the place he got them. His weathered cheeks jiggle with mirth as he spins a new tale about an old place that he won’t fully travel to.

I have been to each one by tracing scar after scar. The one I can’t seem to stop asking about is really ugly. The raised flesh sinks as I push, my father is watching with laughter- then he starts quite happily,  “There was a land of gold. Acres, and acres of gold, the only time we remember we aren’t in heaven is when our backs feel the sun and our fingers find the earth - dusk till dawn, we strip the gold, fill the baskets and we don’t stop, each ear of corn is someone’s treasure yet somehow our own too.”