On a late summer stalk

A forgotten growth in papery husk

Onetime ear of sustenance

Now dried and colored

No hint of midsummer sugar

A tattered orange brown 

The alien heart of coiling growth

Desiccated on rattling stalk

To be trampled

And lie under winter’s flake

Knowing without knowing

Ripe pods will rise anew

Someday to spread the cracks and reign