the furrow of a brow
that looks over promised land
and sees a newly barren desert;

the clench of a fist
in hands as thick as worn leather,
as brownly red as the dirt;

the grind of a boot heel
into pasture turned dusty,
fertile mud gone dry;

the silence of the field
marked by absence of crickets,
of songbirds, of bees, of mice,

broken only by the hum
of machinery, the crackle
of the fire as it burns

from the release spout,
the bellow of the press
as it pushes gas along the pipeline.