Sham
A charlatan among the authentic
likes to fantasize that he belongs,
sometimes almost believes it
until confronted by the words of those
whose eloquence exposes
the trite lines
stuttering from his fingers
onto the silvery keyboard.
long fingers
curved
wrists somewhat straight
guitar neck
rests
on left thumb
holds
pick firmly
between her
thumb
and only
right-hand finger
steps to mic
counts
down beat
first notes ring
as she
plays her guitar
*Elynor born with seven fingers (counting thumbs); only thumb and
index finger on right hand
*Plays her ever-present 1930’s National Duolian Metal Resonator Guitar
I used to think love was like binary stars,
forever stuck orbiting each other
until they’re destroyed by their gravity, no longer far.
Or whatever the science says, something or another.
But you feel so far away
a distant system.
I’m not even a star like you, shining always.
I’m a barren planet in the outer rim,
stuck in icy cold lightyears from you,
doomed to orbit.
Never too close, because you’d feel it too,
the bitter chill that won’t quit.
The Song Of The Plow
My favorite part of farming,
Is the following of the plow,
With a team in step and a plow well set,
It just seems right some how.
The rolling of the furrow,
And the popping of the roots,
The traces squeak and the handles creak,
As the landslide fairly scoots.
The smell of new broke soil,
And the feel of new turned clay,
You prove your skill as you turn and till,
While the work feels most like play.
With the lines o’er one shoulder,
And the plowman’s knot behind,
You guide the team, and watch the beam,
Of the plow so well designed.
With its use we must be judicious,
Anything can be overdone,
But a good rotation feeds a hungry nation,
And the soil’s improvement is begun.
Generations have worked to improve it,
Its balance, design and its draft,
Now there’s many today who would cast it away,
To bring an end to the plowman’s craft.
They extoll the wonders of no-till,
While with poisons they sicken the land,
Bigger tools for traction add their compaction,
And the oilman’s much in demand.
If we’d only look back to our grandfathers,
Just like his fathers before,
The health of the land, with a good eye and good hand,
Can be improved and maintained once more.
Modern farming has no time for rotations,
The old four-course* is now gone,
Make a profit and quick while the world grows sick,
It’ll be someone else’s problem ere long.
Though I miss the squeak of the leather,
As the team pulls together in stride,
The pop of the roots while the landslide fairly scoots,
And I follow behind in my pride.
Now I think back through the ages,
It leaves me in awe somehow,
The progress of man, to where we now stand,
Has always followed the plow.
* A Four-Course rotation, sometimes referred to as a “Norfolk Four Course” involves rotating four plant crops over a four year period. In some places depending on the soil, it may be extended to seven years. The first year is usually a cereal crop like wheat since it requires little in the way of nitrogen but the biomass helps to but organic matter into the soil. The second year is a root crop which also requires little in the way of nitrogen but does well in humus and organic matter. The third year is another cereal crop. In Europe this was often Barley. The fourth year is usually a legume crop like clover which puts nitrogen into the soil for the following crops. When the rotation is extended to seven or more years, this legume crop will have grass added and is sometimes either cut for hay, or grazed as pasture and the “waste” of the animals is then returned to the soil to add nutrients as well as humus.
Mrs. Coyle’s bat wings swayed, as she wrote upon the board
I swore I’d never have them; I’d never be that old
Now, looking in the mirror, I watch those batwings sway
The wrinkles all expanding, day by day by day
The soil crumbles, refusing to
hold moisture as it once did.
Searing air makes tree limbs
sag and weeds turn brown.
Buzzards swoop low, searching
for the stench of those fallen.
Deer come closer in, desperate
in their search for water.
I pray for rain as my desiccated skin
cries for the suppleness of moisture.
And still the cardinal sings
as I dream of the crimson heart
of the earth overflowing in rivers
of abundance that reach out
with awareness that even the
desert teems with living things.
These come: soft-handed men in suits,
acquaintances who never smelled
my father’s grease-smeared work clothes.
They talk loud with one another,
shake hands, slap backs like candidates
at the barbeque fundraiser.
They toil at polished desks in cuff-
linked shirts, play golf at private clubs
on lawns of bottle green, float down
the Tennessee in canopied
pontoon boats for football games.
And these come: sons of sawmillers,
cattle and tobacco farmers. The sun
has ironed their necks, spotted
their foreheads. Their ropy arms hang
from short-sleeved shirts their wives
have pressed in kitchens smelling of bacon.
They’d rather be in worksheds crammed
with busted machines, paint cans stacked
like pyramids, jelly jars jammed
with tenpennies, sinkers, and bolts
that ground their lives against leaving.
A response to “The Awful Rowing Toward God”
Anne Sexton, 1975
In my boat with dead Anne
my oars joined in her journeying
strain to row toward the Almighty.
The shoulders of my spirit
though broad
how they ache.
What help is damp courage?
Soaked habits cling. If I scrape away the fabric
my skin peels with it.
Ocean salt burns
heaping penance on penance.
New currents spin me off course.
Trying to navigate I realize
while murmuring psalms
my blistered palms have been rowing in circles.
