from the pasture (poem) by john k zimmerman on AuthorsDen

from the pasture
by john k zimmerman → (All Poetry by john k zimmerman)

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not entirely autobiographical-- very much a w.i.p. comments?
The old pasture is rank and overgrown the thistles and the pigweed are shoulder high the aspens higher yet. The field needs a burn or a mow or a plow or a herd of goats. In the corner around a dead snag where the last team lies stands the stone pile the one predictable harvest of the farm- each stone a memory of struggle and loss I wander the field past the old spreader across the little ruined stream where once prize Shorthorns watered and up past the rusted iron tired �poppin� john�. The old milk and meat shorthorns are gone now, replaced by long legged black and white milk machines and fast growing hamburger factories, specialists that take more inputs and land than seventy-five acres can afford. You could work a farm that size with a one lunger or a team, and dual use cattle but no more. I climb the stone pile and sit back against the snag. I am not really thinking about the state of agriculture I am thinking about myself and the state that I am in Like the old team I was bred to work and like the team, and the shorthorns and the iron tired �John Deere� I do many things: Together we are lost in an age of specialists. These days you need a paper to do anything, a certificate to dig a ditch, or load a truck, and, man, don�t show a grey hair, by god! The world worships at the shrine of paper qualifications, specialists, and youth. (Course if you�re young and have your papers then they want twenty-five years experience. that�s not justice; it�s not even funny�) So here I sit in this over grown pasture, sorting through the stones of memory each stone a tale of struggle and loss, an old working man without work�

Reviewed by Fr. Kurt Messick

Reviewed on February 6, 2004

well done

Reviewed by jude forese

Reviewed on December 21, 2003

really well written story/poem...

Reviewed by Carolyn Red Bear (The Bear Paw)

Reviewed on December 20, 2003

John, this is so real! Especially the stone... I used to have a teacher who would hire a few students to pick rock with him. And oh, the memory of walking the pasture.... even the old ones... oh how much society has lost because of "specialists". Back then, if a person had a gray hair, that was specialist enough. We really need to get back to the basics.....Excellet write, John!!!!!
In Spirit,
Bear

Reviewed by Leland Waldrip

John, this is so poignant for me. You could have written this sitting in the middle of my mother's grown up old farm. All the ghosts of workers, animal, man and machine, that haunt the disheveled land fill lonely dreams of a moved-on generation.
Best regards,
Leland

Reviewed by Kate Clifford (Reader)

The grey hair part touched me. Try to tell people that grey is just a perception and has nothing to do with aging. Wonderful write!

Reviewed by Tinka Boukes

Wonderful poem/story!!

Love Tinka