Returning to Iowa

Above the just cut field
martins darted through the dusty air,
diminishing astonishingly
the swarms of gnats and moths
orbiting the great round bales,
which sat in their warm compactness
like cakes on racks.
Shadows grinned on the unsunned sides,
and I remember us happy
in a Midwestern way, stretched out
and drowsy, a stop on a trip
to Amana, your hand warm and wet in mine.
A kestrel hovered above the ditch.
A mile off, a pickup made a gray wake
along a gravel road.
A cow crested a hill
and paused to contemplate us.
Some things are not countable in their grace,
so we pine for them,
we remember them with kindness,
we return them to the mouth
to chew them a second time.