During April, National Poetry Month, we are posting a poem a day. If you would like to suggest one, please email it in. Today is special because it is . . . Poem in Your Pocket Day! (Learn more here.) It was President John Adams who said, “You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.” The poem for today is by our 13th Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser.

Spring Plowing by Ted Kooser

West of Omaha the freshly plowed fields
steam in the night like lakes.
The smell of the earth floods over the roads.
The field mice are moving their nests
to the higher ground of fence rows,
the old among them crying out to the owls
to take them all. The paths in the grass
are loud with the squeak of their carts.
They keep their lanterns covered.