The object was to remove objects
from the field. We did this every

year, and every year the rocks came
back again in Spring, as if the sky

was a big blue magnet, drawing
them up through the tangled roots

of last year’s crop, or spilling them
from above, like the time my mother

dropped a jar of buttons on the floor.
We stumbled as we gathered, grumbled

a little, half-working, half-dreaming
through the wind-swept April day,

our eyes scanning the trees for green,
checking the slough for pussywillows

to bring to school—the one evidence
of our rural life the nuns always liked.