Reaping and Sowing in a Minefield

The field, still and breathless,
colored in thirsty hues of yellow,
sits beneath hills just as bleak,
the whole land scoured in disinfectant

and scrubbed clean of stains,
a Lady Macbeth at her basin.
Yet nothing buried stays dormant:
the seeds germinate and expand,

the tendrils pulled up toward sunlight,
until the bursting of ripe fruit
cracks like a distant gunshot,
like blood crying out from the dirt.