Farmer’s Tale

In traveling down these country roads, I could write a book.
Rolling over these sway back hills, I could tell of a town
Where the seasons are painted in a field of pumpkins
Where progress is not known, at least not by hands on a watch
Progress is measured by field hours, the amount of picked potatoes.
And news comes from backyard fences, and gossip they sling.

I could write of a farmer in debt, plowing with arm in a sling,
Mothers up at dawn, before preparing meals, praying from the Book
Tell tales of teen girls, working, serving hash of meat and potatoes;
While dreaming their dreams of life and love outside the small town.
And mention young boys, putting up scarecrows for their eternal watch,
And Silly contests, to lighten the hearts, of who has the largest pumpkin.

While the children run in groups, searching for the Great Pumpkin,
Young men, strapping and strong, measuring how far they sling
Tree trunks, cleared from needed land, under government watch;
Private land, yet owned by government stipend in the debtors book.
Tales of poverty, families forced away from the growing ghost town
By seasons of drought and holidays celebrated by bread and potatoes.

Stories of misery, pain; of hope no larger than the eye of a potato;
Stories of family, love; faith and courage; carved in holiday pumpkins;
Stories of Nativity scenes and colored lights across a small country town;
Stories of worshipers, in a church where a ceiling cross was slung;
Stories of broken hearts; backs and lives, but always the held Book.
Stories of worn ruts; dust and diseased soil that can only be watched

A story, to be sure, of day to day things you may watch
On the news or read about while pealing your breakfast potato.
Seeing a dusty family, in a dusty pickup, when returning a library book.
You may have seen headlines, when picking up a Halloween pumpkin;
Maybe on the internet, a news item about a new found ghost town;
Or a sad report of murder / suicide in a barn by hanging from a noose sling.

Oh I could painfully write this story and you could live it in a book,
As I lived it amid pumpkins and potatoes, and sat in dust storms to watch
My parents slowly die, and then move into the newly found ghost town.

My head bent down, pulled by the dust cloth of a guilt bearing sling;

For I walked away as my father continued plowing up rock potatoes

And mother, ever tired eyes, with loving heart made her pies of pumpkin.

You will see in my book, destiny return me to again watch,

As beyond the barn holding guilt fresh in molded potato bags slung

On rafters,  tumbling weeds and dry pumpkin seeds blow through town.