Husking Corn
Since I spend much time in the kitchen these days, I find myself contemplating simple tasks like peeling and coring an apple, cutting up chicken for soup, cracking an egg into a pan, observing the mysteries of pouring milk, frying fish. And now this revelation—husking corn. I do not take corn for granted.
rainy morning—
waking to the scent
of crockpot stew
One by one, I rip the green leaves off each ear of late corn in this bundle I got at the farm market. I twist off the tuft of silk that graces each tip, noticing how it stubbornly clings to my fingers and to the pearly kernels finally exposed. I rub it off under running water, remembering strands of webs strung between bushes that stuck to my face as I ran through them as a child.
traces of gossamer—
your fingers across my
autumn cheek
The sink fills with corn husks. My late husband used to lay a few in the pot where we boiled the corn, not sure why. I gather them up and dump them into the garbage under the sink. If I had a garden I’d compost them, but there are no gardens here in this condo development.
Here in south Jersey there are many cornfields. The stalks have all dried out by now, gone to autumn rust. Some days I, too, am rusting, or I feel husked, by the pandemic days, weeks, and months that have been stripping the leaves protecting my core. And yet, this harvest . . .
Harvest Home
Last night I cradled
a gathering of corn, my arms
heavy with gold, my lap
warm as an abundant field.
I wanted to give it away,
share the harvest
with any hungry animal,
I had so much.
Soon shadows came
to take some from my hands,
and then the gentle cows
whose brows were white as milk.
Afterward, I sought the stars
and the rows that led to them,
dark furrows lapping my feet
with the promise of sleep
while behind me, discarded husks
lifted on the evening wind
and fell again to earth.
© 2020 Penny Harter.
“Harvest Home” © 2008 from my book *The Night Marsh*.