The North Dakotan fields, once wooly
with wildflower and bee, are lining up
like those in Nebraska, tall and erect,
corn fields like platoons of young cadets.
Ethanol and corn now pay.
The California almond groves wait,
desperate for millions of beehives
from Dakotan fields paid to lie fallow.
Government rent can’t measure up
to the market. Land strewn
with clover and abuzz with purpose
gives way to precise replication …
one success after another…
corn on corn on corn.