THE FARM (p2)
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7 THE TATTERED KINGDOM
_
The queen wears rags.
There is grey in her hair.
Her hands are stained with work
And she carries much pain.
But she holds the kingdom.
And she vows,
‘I will be warm
and I will be free,
and goodness shall prevail.’
They mock her rags.
They call her fool.
They delight in telling her
how much better things are
everywhere else.
But she does what she can do,
And her battle goes on.
And still she holds the kingdom.
And she vows,
‘I will be warm
and I will be free,
and goodness shall prevail.’
The queen wears rags.
There is grey in her hair.
Her hands are stained with work
And she carries much pain.
But she holds the kingdom.
And she vows,
‘I will be warm
and I will be free,
and goodness shall prevail.’
They mock her rags.
They call her fool.
They delight in telling her
how much better things are
everywhere else.
But she does what she can do,
And her battle goes on.
And still she holds the kingdom.
And she vows,
‘I will be warm
and I will be free,
and goodness shall prevail.’
_8 RETREAT
_
Retreat
To the world of animals
Retreat
To where the pain is less
Retreat
To where the thoughts are gentle
Where there is no malice
Where the drives are basic
and easily fulfilled.
Retreat
To the gossip of the barnyard
Retreat
To the schedule of breeding
Retreat
To nonverbal creatures
Whose eyes speak love
And who know no hate
Retreat from the marriage
Retreat from the battle
Retreat from the wasteland.
Find love where love is to be found
Find peace where peace is to be found
Find goodness where goodness is to be found
And make an end to pain that has no end.
Retreat
Retreat
Retreat
Retreat
To the world of animals
Retreat
To where the pain is less
Retreat
To where the thoughts are gentle
Where there is no malice
Where the drives are basic
and easily fulfilled.
Retreat
To the gossip of the barnyard
Retreat
To the schedule of breeding
Retreat
To nonverbal creatures
Whose eyes speak love
And who know no hate
Retreat from the marriage
Retreat from the battle
Retreat from the wasteland.
Find love where love is to be found
Find peace where peace is to be found
Find goodness where goodness is to be found
And make an end to pain that has no end.
Retreat
Retreat
Retreat
(9) PRECIOUS THINGS
_
God, are you looking at your creation?
Great blue heron in flight,
Chiseled from beauty itself.
Winter’s first arrival,
Each branch kissed and embraced by the snow,
Outlined in incredible whiteness.
Are you taking it all in?
Or did you set it up and then go away?
God, don’t miss this splendor;
Your work.
God, are you looking at your creation?
Great blue heron in flight,
Chiseled from beauty itself.
Winter’s first arrival,
Each branch kissed and embraced by the snow,
Outlined in incredible whiteness.
Are you taking it all in?
Or did you set it up and then go away?
God, don’t miss this splendor;
Your work.
_10 RAIN
_
I walk up past pine trees, 50, 60 feet tall, with old, dead branches straggling down into my face. As I push them back they break off stiff and crisp, snapping wood chips back at me. I remember when these trees were young, and I was young, and those branches were alive.
On a particular day, when I was about ten, all the world was covered with a mist. Each pine needle was loaded with tiny droplets. I pushed up through the trees, constantly doused by a warm shower of fresh water. It was all over my face. I drank it off the needles. You could tip your head back and watch the droplets run down a needle, getting bigger as they coalesced, until the collective drop fell on your tongue. I hadn’t yet tasted maple sap at that time, but it’s the only spring harvest I know to be sweeter.
The rain is acid now. Sometimes in the mist you can taste that on your skin. I am more acid myself, with time..
Written in the last 10-15 years, about a day in the early 1960s
I walk up past pine trees, 50, 60 feet tall, with old, dead branches straggling down into my face. As I push them back they break off stiff and crisp, snapping wood chips back at me. I remember when these trees were young, and I was young, and those branches were alive.
On a particular day, when I was about ten, all the world was covered with a mist. Each pine needle was loaded with tiny droplets. I pushed up through the trees, constantly doused by a warm shower of fresh water. It was all over my face. I drank it off the needles. You could tip your head back and watch the droplets run down a needle, getting bigger as they coalesced, until the collective drop fell on your tongue. I hadn’t yet tasted maple sap at that time, but it’s the only spring harvest I know to be sweeter.
The rain is acid now. Sometimes in the mist you can taste that on your skin. I am more acid myself, with time..
Written in the last 10-15 years, about a day in the early 1960s
_11 WYLIE
_
9AM
Outside a dog is barking.
Sounds like a little dog,
Kind of far away.
I know who it isn’t.
It isn’t Shadow,
giant horse of a dog,
lying at my feet,
black lab,
who just half crippled me
jumping up on the bed.
And it isn’t Wylie.
Wylie won’t be barking any more.
He died February 10th, 1995.
His last bark was for the mailman,
And the truck behind the mailman
Who didn’t see him and didn’t have a chance to stop
Beagles are not very smart.
Wylie wouldn’t quite cripple you when he jumped up,
But he could nail you one in the gut
If he hit it with his foot just right,
And he was pretty free with his tongue.
There wasn’t much in the house that had escaped his chewing,
And that includes the cat.
I wonder if that is how she remembers him,
pulling at her fur, taking her head in his mouth,
tearing under the bed after her?
She doesn’t let any other dog treat her like that.
Just Wylie.
9AM
Outside a dog is barking.
Sounds like a little dog,
Kind of far away.
I know who it isn’t.
It isn’t Shadow,
giant horse of a dog,
lying at my feet,
black lab,
who just half crippled me
jumping up on the bed.
And it isn’t Wylie.
Wylie won’t be barking any more.
He died February 10th, 1995.
His last bark was for the mailman,
And the truck behind the mailman
Who didn’t see him and didn’t have a chance to stop
Beagles are not very smart.
Wylie wouldn’t quite cripple you when he jumped up,
But he could nail you one in the gut
If he hit it with his foot just right,
And he was pretty free with his tongue.
There wasn’t much in the house that had escaped his chewing,
And that includes the cat.
I wonder if that is how she remembers him,
pulling at her fur, taking her head in his mouth,
tearing under the bed after her?
She doesn’t let any other dog treat her like that.
Just Wylie.
_12 The addiction of gardening
_
Gardening has a reminiscence of reading a new and entrancing book- for me it was usually science fiction. Any time I had to put the book down, I could feel it in the back of my mind, that wanting to pick it up and read the next chapter. Just so with the garden.; coming inside from the heat of the afternoon, back aching from planting corn, neck doubtless burned, cooling off from being overheated, and supposedly enjoying a break of playing on the computer- and there it is-that little feeling in the back of my mind, of wanting to open up the book and read the next chapter; the next chapter of this summer’s garden.
The story unfolds slowly at times, with many twists and turns of plot. (I wonder if that is why they call the beds ‘garden *’plots’*?)
In a way it is a mystery- will it rain badly this summer, or drought? Will the cows break in at a crucial time and try to steal everything?
I have to wait for the seeds to germinate, and, just as you sneak a peek at the next chapter or the end of the book, I sometimes can’t resist digging some up to see how they are doing.
Gardening has a reminiscence of reading a new and entrancing book- for me it was usually science fiction. Any time I had to put the book down, I could feel it in the back of my mind, that wanting to pick it up and read the next chapter. Just so with the garden.; coming inside from the heat of the afternoon, back aching from planting corn, neck doubtless burned, cooling off from being overheated, and supposedly enjoying a break of playing on the computer- and there it is-that little feeling in the back of my mind, of wanting to open up the book and read the next chapter; the next chapter of this summer’s garden.
The story unfolds slowly at times, with many twists and turns of plot. (I wonder if that is why they call the beds ‘garden *’plots’*?)
In a way it is a mystery- will it rain badly this summer, or drought? Will the cows break in at a crucial time and try to steal everything?
I have to wait for the seeds to germinate, and, just as you sneak a peek at the next chapter or the end of the book, I sometimes can’t resist digging some up to see how they are doing.
_ 13 Celebrate the time for what it is
_
Not for how much you can cram into it.
Golden beauty.
Not for how much you can cram into it.
Golden beauty.
14
If I can give seed room to grow-
If I can let the trees and plants stretch up to the sun without the hindrance of pavement-
If the cows can be with their families-
Know their own species and others in harmony, and without misery-
If humans can play and learn-
If fear and horror have no place here-
If there are fireflies, and whip-poor-wills, wild geese, and northern lights-
The loveliness of the moon and stars-
The jewelry of the heavens-
The perfume of the flowers-
The power of the wind and storms-
All this, all this-
Where I share the dance-
Onlooker, participant-
The dance around me and within me-
It takes me beyond myself, to the place that I love.
If I can let the trees and plants stretch up to the sun without the hindrance of pavement-
If the cows can be with their families-
Know their own species and others in harmony, and without misery-
If humans can play and learn-
If fear and horror have no place here-
If there are fireflies, and whip-poor-wills, wild geese, and northern lights-
The loveliness of the moon and stars-
The jewelry of the heavens-
The perfume of the flowers-
The power of the wind and storms-
All this, all this-
Where I share the dance-
Onlooker, participant-
The dance around me and within me-
It takes me beyond myself, to the place that I love.
15
5/1/2019: Same shit, different year- another chapter in my life
Well, once again it is spring- and once again, (as the gardening season revs up), I look around and realize that my house and yard are approaching gridlock.
Last fall, I rented a monster dumpster, which I gradually filled to the brim with CAREFULLY selected miscellany to go to the 'great beyond'. It all fit into the appropriate categories- so I wasn't charged extra fees- for anything BUT the inordinate amount of time it took to go through said house and yard, sorting through the flotsam and jetsam of 20+ years of haphazard life on the farm. And I THOUGHT I had tamed the chaos.
All that is great if you finish the job by re-stowing the stuff you decide to keep.
Such, alas, was not the case- rather, it remained in a holding pattern- which didn't hold for that long.
People- there are always people- myself included-who wanted or needed stuff- Xmas stuff, spare parts- shims, balsa wood, rolls of electric wire, stove pipe, endless screws, bolts, nuts, steel plate, bricks, blocks, pavers- books, mineral specimens, caulk, raw sheep's wool to use to tie flies- planting supplies, weaving supplies, seeds, alternative clothes (kind of like the 'alternative facts' we have come to know and love so well..), the occasional bed to spend the night on (if such a thing as a bed could be located below the overburden), musical instruments, amplifiers, snowshoes, skis, ice-fishing gear, circuit breakers and circuit breaker boxes, tools- woodlathe tools, drills, batteries, chargers, levels, squares, sanders- the list could go on...(no, really ALL of these items and many more were among the requests- I am a clearing house for this stuff, and immediate family- and others- well know it, so this is where they come. And, actually, this winter and spring I was an easy target, because- if you come upstairs to look for one thing and you happen to see another thing- then whoever it is (they will remain nameless-) goes away with 2 things instead of 1- why not? Good til the next time someone needs either of those things..
On good days I can readily lay my hand on things. On days when- for example- three people are cooking 3 different things simultaneously (in the very small kitchen we have) pots and other supplies randomly end up in outlying rooms. Hopefully clean pots- I find out eventually).
It's a busy place. It's a farm- and an ecosystem.
So- the piles were tossed- and re-tossed- and spread- and pushed back to make room for tropical plants crowding up to the windows..
2 calves had come into the house for intensive care and rehab this spring- one for only 12 hours (she made it), 1 for 2 weeks (he didn't). That occupation engendered its own area of chaos in the laundry room- some of which lingers. It needs a few hours of remediation- and then maybe I could catch up on the wash.. until then I step over said chaos to get to the tool box- which might or might not have what I need, depending on who used it last..)
And now it is time for migration to the outdoors. The great spring push. Calves being born, hay rationed out, fields, fencelines, and swamps walked (right now there is very little difference between field and swamp..)
Seedlings are muscling and shouldering their way out of starter trays, fighting for sunlight. Peas are planted, garden beds checked daily for soil condition.
My point is, if you come to visit, you might want to come with cleaning supplies and a will to help. You probably have seen much of this stuff before. You may well have given me some of it- God knows, it comes from multiple sources- this is, after all, a 2-way street. An ecosystem of useful stuff. There is a rotating population. If you're sufficiently familiar with it, you might even know where it is (supposed to be) going for storage.
Come on by.. I often pay for help.. if you can find me. I could be outside. I could be upstairs. I could be at this keyboard. I will leave clues and snacks... 5/1/19 lw
Last fall, I rented a monster dumpster, which I gradually filled to the brim with CAREFULLY selected miscellany to go to the 'great beyond'. It all fit into the appropriate categories- so I wasn't charged extra fees- for anything BUT the inordinate amount of time it took to go through said house and yard, sorting through the flotsam and jetsam of 20+ years of haphazard life on the farm. And I THOUGHT I had tamed the chaos.
All that is great if you finish the job by re-stowing the stuff you decide to keep.
Such, alas, was not the case- rather, it remained in a holding pattern- which didn't hold for that long.
People- there are always people- myself included-who wanted or needed stuff- Xmas stuff, spare parts- shims, balsa wood, rolls of electric wire, stove pipe, endless screws, bolts, nuts, steel plate, bricks, blocks, pavers- books, mineral specimens, caulk, raw sheep's wool to use to tie flies- planting supplies, weaving supplies, seeds, alternative clothes (kind of like the 'alternative facts' we have come to know and love so well..), the occasional bed to spend the night on (if such a thing as a bed could be located below the overburden), musical instruments, amplifiers, snowshoes, skis, ice-fishing gear, circuit breakers and circuit breaker boxes, tools- woodlathe tools, drills, batteries, chargers, levels, squares, sanders- the list could go on...(no, really ALL of these items and many more were among the requests- I am a clearing house for this stuff, and immediate family- and others- well know it, so this is where they come. And, actually, this winter and spring I was an easy target, because- if you come upstairs to look for one thing and you happen to see another thing- then whoever it is (they will remain nameless-) goes away with 2 things instead of 1- why not? Good til the next time someone needs either of those things..
On good days I can readily lay my hand on things. On days when- for example- three people are cooking 3 different things simultaneously (in the very small kitchen we have) pots and other supplies randomly end up in outlying rooms. Hopefully clean pots- I find out eventually).
It's a busy place. It's a farm- and an ecosystem.
So- the piles were tossed- and re-tossed- and spread- and pushed back to make room for tropical plants crowding up to the windows..
2 calves had come into the house for intensive care and rehab this spring- one for only 12 hours (she made it), 1 for 2 weeks (he didn't). That occupation engendered its own area of chaos in the laundry room- some of which lingers. It needs a few hours of remediation- and then maybe I could catch up on the wash.. until then I step over said chaos to get to the tool box- which might or might not have what I need, depending on who used it last..)
And now it is time for migration to the outdoors. The great spring push. Calves being born, hay rationed out, fields, fencelines, and swamps walked (right now there is very little difference between field and swamp..)
Seedlings are muscling and shouldering their way out of starter trays, fighting for sunlight. Peas are planted, garden beds checked daily for soil condition.
My point is, if you come to visit, you might want to come with cleaning supplies and a will to help. You probably have seen much of this stuff before. You may well have given me some of it- God knows, it comes from multiple sources- this is, after all, a 2-way street. An ecosystem of useful stuff. There is a rotating population. If you're sufficiently familiar with it, you might even know where it is (supposed to be) going for storage.
Come on by.. I often pay for help.. if you can find me. I could be outside. I could be upstairs. I could be at this keyboard. I will leave clues and snacks... 5/1/19 lw