Once I lived in a place where wheat was raised, wide fields created by a man
they called Dash. He’d shout dash it all, the children said,
as he warmed seeds in cracked hands then threw them in his mouth,
chewed for a while. His wheat grew
in the winter, seeded high on the ridge and lower down on fields that faced
the Hills of Issischar. For a girl born

in the prairies of Canada, I should have expected the cultivators, the tillers
the seeders and the guys pulling long black hoses to irrigate when rain didn’t fall.
Dash would force the earth into taking the seeds, then circle the land every day
till sprouts broke through the crusty surface. His stalks would stand proud
in the light of winter. His crop has come again

people would say, watching the ridge, then lower down on the side of the farm
near the hills. Swamps used to stretch like paddies waiting for rice, when
he was a boy, when Eucalyptus and Sycamore, brought all the way
from Australia, drained swamps that stretched like lakes. Dash would dream of what could be
as he pulled pipes to drain the putrid waters. He isn’t in the fields anymore

but in a chair pulled near the window, tea in a plastic cup cooled, then
tilted to his mouth.
Look at this, Dad his daughter says. It’s your wheat, Dad!
What? he asks.
The seeds, remember? You used to warm them in your hands.
What? he asks again.

They’re planting now his daughter tells him.
Who?
The boys who used to help you. I’ve brought you seeds, Dad.
Here, hold them in your hand. I’ve warmed them up as you taught me.
Now isn’t that good?

Dash takes the kernels in his tough hands, rolls the seeds from one to the other.
When you warm them they have a better chance. You used to say … he hears.
That was my secret, they’re ready when they’re warm he whispers.
The young guys are impatient, just throw them in.
Warm them up, I always said.

Canadian born, Rochelle Mass grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, and moved to Israel in 1973 with her husband and two young daughters. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she is the author of two previous collections of poetry; her work has appeared in US, Canadian, and Israeli publications. She is a translator and the editor of Kibbutz Trends, a biannual journal of contemporary issues. Her new poetry collection, The Startled Land, is now available from Wind River Press.