The Color of the Wheat Fields

by Les

“It has done me good,” said the fox, “because of the color of the wheat fields.”—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

You know the story, how the fox
insisted on taming, how it must lead
to the day of parting. We are past the middle

of the book. The fox is speaking in riddles
about the color of wheat fields. Every time
you leave, he seems to be saying, an abyss

yawns in my brain. To fill it, I am always looking
for a shade I love. Mammals have evolved
the limbic system. In humans, it ends under

the cortex, in a fissure where attachment
blooms like a flower. So we know that goodbye
is a ritual too. It prisms light into a profusion

of yellow and russet. A boy’s blond hair.
The way that rust eats up the stern of ships.
Memory must be why barnacles cling.

Like treasure hunters, the left behind
can tell you where exactly in the deep
the wound, though old, gleams like gold.