"Spring Harvest" by Stephen Cramer

[audio mp3="http://barnstormjournal.org/content/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/stephen-crammer.mp3"][/audio]After a long          winter, when I digmy fingers into the coldframe's still ice-bound                     soil, I find in my hands          the bone chipsthat some sated animal          has left behind& the sharp hullsof seeds. When I sift                     the dirt out & drop          the shardsinto a tin bucket          reserved for weeds& other vagrantsI expect dissonance, a metallic                     quarrel of birth & end.          Maybe it shouldn't scare methat I can't tell them          apart, that they make the samebright & fearless rattle.Stephen Cramer's first book of poetry, Shiva's Drum, was selected for the National Poetry Series by Grace Schulman and published in 2004. His second, Tongue & Groove, was released by University of Illinois Press in 2007. His work has recently appeared in journals such as American Poetry Review, African American Review, Harvard Review, The Yale Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, and Green Mountains Review. He teaches creative writing at The University of Vermont and is now polishing up a third book of poetry with help from a grant from the Vermont Arts Council.