The Farmer’s Speech
He ran the cosmos
of a thousand acres
from a pick up truck,
mucking through mire
thicker than hell,
subduing snakes with our shovels.
106 degrees
smell of Kool menthol smoke
lacing the slow drenching rain of sweat
and that farm truck,
now a million miles away,
only oasis in sight
with its freon mirage
and overheating motor
beckoned me,
come sit in my cab.
Drink the water
of my false refuge.
That’s when the speech would come,
as though from the mouth of Adam himself,
that very first farmer to know the toil of dust
“Son, you can’t pick your jobs.
This has to be done.”
Speaking sternly into the cacophony of my complaints,
“John David, I don’t mind hard work.
I never have.” and those words
wore me like a cross
“Dammit! My soul would say.
Like a curse that is the cure
running like chemo in my veins.
That speech heals me
And The balmy fellowship
Of the farmer’s suffering
What I wouldn’t give to hear it again.
John David Walt
Ash Wednesday 2012
