Indiana Was scared at first of indiana tales of ku klukers and smiling white racists Marion's 60 year young lynching hadn't seen anything like all this grandfather straight corn since I stood on the capitol steps and smiled out at the million heads and shoulders planted ear to ear blanketing everything between democracy's shadow and abraham lincoln's feats nothing like those arms outstretched believing in the sun fields of dreams since those renewed nappy stalks held hands and prayed on washington's lawn a bumper crop of atonement weeding themselves unwilling to let the seedlings rot in the field or be used to soak up stomach acid in the hungry belly of a nation feeding on itself yet starving for change was scared at first of indiana and its mysterious corn silk oceans but now I see my grandfather there and a million newborn men in the shadows of the green horizons teaching me to stand up straight and how to corn row my fears.