The Cornfield Poem by David Lewis Paget

It was twenty seven years since he
Had been back to the farm,
Where he'd played out in the cornfield there
With Jenny, Jim and Arn,
They had been just country kids enjoying
Life beneath the sun,
In those great wide open spaces
Where they'd had the space to run.

There were trees to climb and nests to find
And eggs collected, rare,
That they'd kept in little boxes,
In divisions, they would share,
Just as each shared with each other
Jenny's kisses in the corn,
Though they never told each other,
Jenny said, it ‘wasn't form.'

Now he looked at the old farmhouse
Saw the shutters hanging off,
And the wooden porch collapsing
In the corner, by the trough,
While the leadlight in the front door
Had been shattered by a stone,
The verandah posts were mildewed
And the garden overgrown.

And the rocking chair his grandad had
Sat rocking in, outside,
Still sat in its dismay, paint peeling
Since the old man died,
There was such an air of melancholy
Round that empty place,
He had bought it on a whim, and for a song
To lend it grace.

He would paint it and rejuvenate,
He thought, would bring it back,
To those days of fun and laughter that
Had sounded round the track,
Then he stood and gazed out from the porch
Toward the old cornfield,
That was head-high in old cornstalks, weeds,
And memories revealed.

He settled down that starless night
In that old rocking chair,
As the pall of night descended
And a chill crept through the air,
He imagined shadows of his friends
That gambolled in the corn,
With their childlike cries of wonder
Like his own childhood, reborn.

But his gaze became more troubled
On his brow, he wore a frown,
As he thought on pretty Jenny
How she'd grown, and put him down,
She had taken up with Arnie
When her breasts began to show,
And they'd wandered in the cornfield
Doing what, he didn't know.

He had thought that she had loved him,
He had thought that she had cared,
But he caught them in the cornfield
And he saw her breasts were bared,
She was lying there with Arnie
Both oblivious to all,
So he'd crept back to the farmhouse
Turned his face against the wall.

He was bitter, he could taste it
In his mouth like bitter-wort,
And his mind was more than hasty
In the remedy he sought,
So he took his father's matches
While his heart and mind had reeled,
When the wind was blowing westwards
He set fire to that cornfield.

It was dry, went up so fast when he
Had thought it worth a try,
To flush them out, too late the flames
Licked up toward the sky,
It roared and crackled through the corn
And then he'd heard them scream,
The sweat broke out upon his brown
Remembering the scene.

The field was well ablaze when Jenny
Suddenly appeared,
Running, screaming out the corn
Much worse than he had feared,
Her dress and hair were blazing
She had gone up like a torch,
And fell right at his feet where he
Was watching, from the porch.

They'd had to search for Arnie, he was
Just a pile of bones,
Deep in the ashes of the corn
Charred black there, on his own,
And no-one guessed who lit the fire
They thought a lightning strike,
But he, sat on the rocking chair
Sat shivering, all night.

The sun came up so slowly as it
Lit the breaking dawn,
It spread its glow upon the porch
He'd sat, from night to morn,
His eyes were fixed out on the spot
Where Jenny burned and fell,
He never blinked again, he'd gone
To his own brand of hell!

29 December 2012