“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.” The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture [farming as a cultural and spiritual discipline – recommended]
farmhouses
still alive in memory,
sitting along country roads
wild ~
unpaved
one home-place
with a view of the lake,
a sassy summer promise of trout
and, through the capacious winter,
hoary days of ice fishing,
afternoons of ice skating
with freezing fingers and toes,
nearly as inky blue
as the oncoming dusk
© 2018, Jamie Dedes
Photo credit: Farming near Klingerstown, Pennsylvania courtesy of the United States Department of Agriculture.
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
I’m a city girl but I know that farming is hard work. Honest I do. For years, I was in a mixed marriage with a country boy. He was from a multigenerational farm family. I learned a little of the truth about that business, just how persistent, smart and soulful a farmer has to be. Nonetheless, I seem to want to hold tight to idyllic visions of farm life, ones I imagined as we passed farms on drives through rural areas when I was a child.
I do have strong feelings about farms that are belied by the poem above, which harkens back to those youthful fantasies. I feel, for example, a sense of gratitude to the field hands and farm workers – including migrant workers – who ensure our sustenance. Their work is back-breaking – sometimes spirit-breaking – unremitting, insufficiently rewarded and unhealthy. Healthy, sustainable farming practices that are safe for these workers, for us, and for the Earth are being fought for the world over.
This week share poem/s out of your own nostalgia, experience, impressions, gratitude, concerns, or convictions about farms, farming, or farm policy.
Share your poem/s on theme in the comments section below or leave a link to it/them.
All poems on theme are published on the following Tuesday. Please do NOT email your poem to me or leave it on Facebook. If you do it’s likely I’ll miss it or not see it in time.
IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These are partnered with your poem/s on first publication.
PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.
Deadline: Monday, December 17 by 8 p.m. Pacific.
Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro. It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you. This is a discerning non-judgemental place to connect.
You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.
ABOUT
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
I’m squeaking in, hope it is not too late! This was a very thought provoking prompt – I know live in farm country yet not being a farmer, I still feel so removed from this lifestyle.
https://iidorun.wordpress.com/2018/12/17/bed-and-breakfast-a-haibun/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Living On The Glebe
A tithed farm had flourished
since Queen Victoria’s reign.
Then the council needed acres
of land, built a housing estate
in the 1930’s for families like
us who couldn’t afford to buy.
Small, airy houses with an inside
toilet and coal shed, no running
hot water but spacious gardens
front and back.We made our home
here in the ’50’s and I walked past
apple trees to my first school.
Elderly neighbours recalled
the redbrick farmhouse, told
how they were sent there
as children and exchanged
a few pence for pats of golden
butter and hay-warmed eggs.
They felt the land’s closeness
despite shops and post office
and bus routes to the city centre.
Road names were echoes.
Farmcote Swancote
Old Farm Glebe Farm
And during the War,they dug
over their long back gardens.
Potatoes and turnips grew again.
Carrots were shaken free of soil,
peeled, grated and added to cake
mix instead of rationed sugar.
LikeLiked by 1 person
.trail.
Posted in blog posts | Leave a reply Edit
.trail.
Posted on December 15, 2018
the sight is disgusting
to the last degree
blind horse
liver sauce on fish
they turn the hay
eighteen
times
LikeLiked by 1 person
?
LikeLike
. monday evening.
rain came, seeds will grow.
watered places i cannot reach,
butt half full.
noisy day, farmer making hay,
lambs moved from mothers.
they say the sun will come
later to dry .
LikeLiked by 2 people
.growing potatoes.
the robin came down as he cleared the ground,
all red chest, pretty eyes.
we discussed the earth, rich now, without
the stones. we could grow potatoes as they
did here in the war. i have the photograph.
these are fortunate times, while have disliked
the tuber since the flu struck.
there has been a lot of it this year here.
we plan a pretty little greenhouse, all white
with embellishments, red geraniums.
the robin watched, i am told he will like mealworms.
sbm.
LikeLiked by 4 people
.limousines and chevrolets.
it was quite a while
then while travelling she noticed
an interest in cattle.knowing little
noted their shapes and patterns.
mentioned the farmers yesterday
most in rugged vehicles
dogs barking
one in a saloon car, the passenger
kind
full of food stuff
for cattle.
she wondered at the white ones
on her way home.
LikeLiked by 3 people
A Secret Place
When Dad barked
You hopped to it,
Let’s go! In the car!
He loved the country.
One day, he said,
I’m moving to some
Small town,
Somewhere,
Someday.
Got my love of trees,
Wide expanses
And the smell of grass
From him
I guess.
Let’s go pick strawberries.
Get some fresh picked apples,
Some corn, if it’s ready,
Right from the field.
He always took the
Side roads
On our way to
Where he wanted
To be.
I marvel,
Now,
Where he was
Coming from,
Some secret desire,
Some past life,
Taking him home….
LikeLiked by 2 people
ALLOTMENT
Hefting water out of the river to
feed the newly-planted.Long years since I
had to do the same on Uncle’s farm:enamel
white bucket hung from a windlass,sweet
water drawn from deep. I could lift but half
a pailful then. Brothers, neighbour’s girls,
rudimentary washes after endless
play; earth closet in the yard, potatoes,
their skins slowly curling in the cauldron
on the hearth.Somewhere a clock. Bored one day,
I stood beside the well and bawled for help.
Dad came running and rough chastisement
was love’s affirmation.
Brief check before I
swooshed down the hay bales in the barn, guiltless
until the straws in my hair betrayed me.
The years have added muscle, as I bend
and dip and lift from the grateful water,
remembering my boyhood’s guilty smile.
LikeLiked by 2 people
My fourth response:
Purifying shepherds
Smoke from burning
droplets of blood from the tail
of last October’s sacrificed horse,
ashes of the stillborn calves,
the shells of beans.
We are sprinkled with water,
wash our hands
in spring-water,
drink milk mixed with must.
Towards evening after shepherds
fed their flocks,
laurel-branches
are used as brooms
to clean their stables,
water sprinkled through them,
then stables adorned
with laurel-boughs.
Shepherds burn sulphur,
rosemary, fir-wood, and incense,
usher the smoke through the stables
and the flocks to purify them.
cakes, millet, milk,
and other food
is offered.
Hay and straw bonfires lit
cymbals and flutes play
as sheep and shepherds
are run three times
through the fire.
At an open air feast
we sit or lay
on turf benches
and sup a lot.
LikeLiked by 2 people
three cow salute
walking to my high school meant walking past three cows
just as 61st avenue came to its
senses and straightened up
south of bethany home road
and what was then
a bobwire fence held back these bored cows
who stood and chewed or didn’t
and slowly turned
their
heads
in
unison
as
you
passed
they were the stolid
they were the stupefied
the stunned
the milkbaggy trio
the watchers of boys and girls
they needed a date with a frisky bull
or maybe they needed nothing
but daily relief from udder strain
grass
and me tweaking their monotony
into near monotony
couldn’t tell you
don’t know why those bored
and boring cows still lease space
in a pasture in my head
just know
the smell of horseshit does nothing for me
but
the smell of cowshit
has more than once filled
my stupid stolid eyes
with nostalgic tears
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi Jamie,
Here’s my third response:
A Burning Fox
A twelve year old lad in a valley
at the end of a willow copse
catches a vixen fox, snacker
on many a farmyard fowl.
He wraps it in straw and hay,
sets her alight, she escapes him
and in her fleeing sets fire to crops
in the fields, a breeze goads the flames.
Vital winter’s snap to feed
family destroyed.
So every festival of Grow,
a fox is burned.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Hi Jamie,
My second response:
White Lady
Crowned white lady with flowing hair,
and fiery shoes, carries a spindle
and a three-cornered mirror
that foretells the future.
For nine nights before May Day,
chased by Wild Hunt Winter,
hounded from place to place,
she seeks refuge among villagers.
Folk leave their windows open
so she can find safety
behind cross-shaped panes.
Implores a farmer she meets to hide her
in a shock of grain. He does.
next morning his rye crop
is sprinkled with grains of gold
LikeLiked by 4 people
Hi Jamie,
My first response:
Blessed Are These Sacred Folk
who plough
who prepare the earth
who plough with a wide furrow to bring water from the river
who plant seeds
who trace the first ploughing, reploughing as first did not work
who harrow
who dg
who weed
who reap
who carry the grain
who store the grain
who share the grain
who share their good fortune with us, the dead
LikeLiked by 3 people
Amen! ♥️
LikeLike
My collection of poetry, Broadfork Farm (The Poetry Box) is all about life on a farm. I was a regular farmsitter at this small organic farm in Trout Lake, Washington for a number of years. https://thepoetrybox.com/bookstore/broadfork-farm
LikeLiked by 1 person
Trisha, thank you. Did you want to submit a poem to be included in next Tuesday’s collection?
LikeLike
“The Grand Scheme of Things”
(Raanana, April 11, 2016)
The dark cloud squats heavily on the horizon
Undecided whether to drift slowly
Over our dusty fields with its fat bladder
Full of drought quenching rains
Or to drift up the coast a ways
To quench the thirst of our enemy’s fields.
O Lord, I know it makes no difference
In the grand scheme of things,
But I can’t help the fact
It would make all the difference in the world
To me.
(c) 2016, Mike Stone (https://uncollectedworks.wordpress.com/bemused/)
LikeLiked by 3 people
For me this was perfect imagery. I felt for the farmer. It drifted seemlessly through my mind’s eye. Thank You.
LikeLiked by 2 people
“The Dead Don’t Envy the Living”
(Inspired by Wendell Berry’s “Testament”
Raanana, August 17, 2018)
The dead don’t envy the living
Any more than the living envy the dead.
Who’s to say what’s the best state
For matter to be in
In the long run?
I would think the best,
For one above ground,
Is to make the most of what you are
And, for those below,
To make the least.
(c) 2018, Mike Stone (https://uncollectedworks.wordpress.com/call-of-the-whippoorwill/)
LikeLiked by 2 people
“On the Backs of Swallows”
(Inspired by Wendell Berry’s poetry
Raanana, August 12, 2018)
I’m not saying we won’t live forever eventually.
We may or may not.
City dwellers seem to think it so,
Detached as they are from the moist clods of dirt
That cleanses the soul,
The open skies riding on the backs of changeling swallows,
And the sweet-tasting water that flows from mountainsides
Into rock-strewn creek beds.
It’s just that a farmer knows too well
Of birth and death,
Planting his hands in the loam of earth
With seeds becoming apples or corn
Under his tender calloused hands
Which go back to seed in the seasons of their times.
He knows too well
That death makes way for life to bud
As life makes way for death’s decay,
Too well to hope to live forever,
Somehow rising above the seasons
To cheat the way things ought to be.
(c) 2018, Mike Stone (https://uncollectedworks.wordpress.com/call-of-the-whippoorwill/)
LikeLiked by 3 people
Hi, Jamie! Wendell Berry is one of my favorite poets. A couple of the poems I’ll be submitting for this week’s prompt were inspired by his work. Another poem is about an imaginary farmer from my neck of the woods. Thanks for being a constant inspiration for us all.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thank you, Mike. Delighted to find you are coming out to okay this week.
LikeLiked by 1 person