John P. Kristofco
Seeds
we're digging out the plants he left behind,
quaking in the autumn wind like him
at the end,
brittle, brown-gray remnants in his rows,
the lines he followed every day,
awakened by the dawn
drawn by the sun to rise
upon a place and stand
in swirling wind and rain
and live until it didn't matter,
leaving only seeds
and traces of a father's path behind
Bio
John P. Kristofco, from Highland Heights, Ohio, is professor of English and the former dean of Wayne College in Orrville. His poetry, short stories, and essays have appeared in over a hundred different publications, including: Folio, Rattle, The Bryant Literary Review, The Cimarron Review, Poem, Grasslimb, Iodine, Small Pond, The Aurorean, Ibbetson Street, Blue Unicorn, Blueline, and Sheepshead Review. He has published three collections of poetry, A Box of Stones, Apparitions, and The Fire in Our Eyes. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times.