The real old boys who found their weather in the stars,
within explosive storms on the sun, years in advance—
would be dismayed with how we farm today.
My father’s shadow, I followed disc and tractor straining
to turn the earth, blackbirds diving like swarming sea gulls
behind us, as we broke clods in lace-up boots to test the soil.
Trading energy, no one cultivates today to turn green weeds
and stinging nitrogen back into the ground—no one marks-out
furrows in sandy loam, no one irrigates with a hoe.
We spray chemicals (‘herbicides’ sounds nice and friendly)
in the naked space between the trunks of vines and trees.
We run trillions of miles of black plastic for a sip in drips
to save water for more crops we can seldom sell at a profit.
Still the perpetual motion of new money: each depreciation
offsetting taxes for urban investors on the next farm
they sell to one another like summer homes and yachts.
Why bother to predict tomorrow’s weather when farms
change hands in a swirl of smoke and yellow steel?
Hope rises from dark despair,
the jagged edge of acrimony
hurriedly honed in fear—
a pause to lay swords down,
for the blood to crust
and contemplate alternatives.
Are we conscripted warriors
for opposing forces,
or free to reclaim our sanity,
to nurture and heal
with the real work
the sun awaits?
Well, while I’m, here I’ll do the work— And what’s the work?To ease the pain of living. Everything else, drunken dumbshow.
- Allen Ginsberg (“Memory Gardens”)
One more cigarette
for the young dog
to piss and poop,
to explore the garden,
check-out the squirrel holes
before I load her up.
One more cigarette
to let the split oak set
before I stack it.
One more cigarette
and a cup of old coffee
to inhale November.
drycrikjournal 