Corn King

Portrait of Rudolf II as Vertumnus, the Roman god of the seasons by Guiseppe Arcimboldo c.1590

Corn King, solitary man,
Where did you get your wandering ways?
Can you stay the season's end to bless the boy,
To see the corn turn gold,
To watch the wheat wave,
Will you wait to bring the harvest in?

Under the fluttering cottonwoods,
Vast in undulating, half-caste shade,
You mused the summer through,
With fiddle and pipe,
Passing the lengthening days,
Waiting for the pregnant land,
The ripening season,
The moment of release.

Where were you at planting time?
Did your hand plow
This ancient earth,
Harrow winter-ravaged ground?
Did you breathe subtle winds
To scatter random seeds around,
Or nourishing showers?
What was your name, then and now?
Was it Corn King,
Lord of Patience and Play,
Friend of the Seed?
Are you a Snowman in winter,
Made by a boy's hand,
Shivering in the wet, the old,
The chilly wind?

Corn King, solitary man,
Where did you get your wandering ways?
Can you stay the season's end to bless the boy,
To see the corn turn gold,
To watch the wheat wave?
Will you wait to bring the harvest in?

Copyright 2006 by M. David Orr