Seed – a poem by Patrick T. Reardon

Seed

The roaring, the cry in daytime,
in the season of night. Seed time.
 
The bulls circle me, the bulls
of Deuteronomy, gaping
mouths, ravening.  
 
My bones are numbered
and allotted. I am poured
like molten metal. My heart
melts like dirty snow along
the city curb. I am dry as
broken clay, as corpse teeth,
as dog dust.
 
At McDonald’s, an assembly
of the wicked, a court of
miracles, a communion of
saints. My feet, my hands.
The song of Moses.
 
My bones converse. My
garments keep time. My
work shirts are the color
of vestments, white for
death, red for wonders,
green for the sun on the
field at dawn.
 
The mouth of the lion, the
horn of the bison, the
sparrow beak. In the
midst of the congregation,
the seed.
 
My beard, my vows.
The meek and the kindreds. 
The fatted calves.
 
Soul seed.
 

Patrick T. Reardon, who was a Chicago Tribune reporter for 32 years, has published six poetry collections, including Darkness on the Face of the Deep, Salt of the Earth and Puddin’: The Autobiography of a Baby, A Memoir in Prose Poems. His poetry has appeared in Commonweal, America, Spiritus, Heart of Flesh, Amethyst Review, Rhino, Burningword Literary Journal, Poetry East and other journals. His new poetry collection Every Marred Thing: A Time in America, the winner of the 2024 Faulkner-Wisdom Prize from the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society of New Orleans, is forthcoming from Lavender Ink. Reardon has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize for poetry.