It's a very short poem entitled "Abraham."
Again, the title is being used in a kind of parallel way
to the poem.
I'm thinking of Abraham, who was called upon by God
to sacrifice his son and God relenting
upon that demand finally, and also
of a poem in a roundabout way that Wilfred Owen wrote,
who was a poet who made most of his reputation
from poems he wrote during the First World War, in which he
was killed.
Benjamin Britten used some of his poems
in the War Requiem, a poem which is also about Abraham,
but in which Abraham representing, I guess,
humanity in general.
After God relents upon his demand
to have Abraham kill a son, Abraham kills him anyway.
And this poem only plays peripherally
on these two circumstances.
It's about a farmer whose crops are diseased.
And because the wind will spread the disease
to crops in neighboring farms, he's
directed to burn his own crops, which are somewhat
like his children to him.
I think that it's a poem about the sense of relief
in completely losing that which you most care for.
Westward, our recluse neighbor has fired his crops
against disease.
The landscape sways a lake of flame.
In the red summer we rise and dress in the dark.
We lift the latch on brightness, walk down
to the stricken lovers scattered this side of the river.
Everywhere hands touch, wheat cracks,
corn stalks are torches, wildflowers rock
in their vases of flame.
Deep in his own thought, the neighbor smiles.
Now the land's not his, nor was, nor will become anything
more than his love burned down.
His million suns whirl westward, dressed
in the curling sacrificial gowns.