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    • Poetry >
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      • Far Away Places
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Poetry from The Last Day of Harvest, by Greg German
Kansas farm & rural themed poetry and personal essays.
All writing, poetry & essays in this website - Copyright © by Greg German, 2019
Select poems from The Last Day of Harvest
  • Summer  |  Harvest  |  Fall  |  Winter  | Spring
Other Series
  • The Limestone Cowboy  |  As A...

Spring Selections
​

Traveling With The River    
 
Knowing winter's clear water
will soon be dulled by summer,
the two of us wade
just a ways down
from the old Brock Bridge.
Advance scouts, we're alert
for yesterday's ware.
Abandoned bottles, hubcaps,
and other good junk
wait between last night's coon
tracks melting in the silt
and today's sun patting
the river's cool bottom.  Friendly,
the current nudges us farther
than we have been before.
We forget and let April's path
splash above our knees, ignoring
dense mud and scavenging sand
that sucks at and into
our worn canvas shoes.
We stop at Holler's Bend,
listen---and hearing only
ourselves, imagine
the sound of trees
stretching and buds splitting.
It's late.  Our mothers
will worry.  But we
decide we are men
and are never going home, again.
 
Originally Published in WIND, 1987, V.17, N.61
Sow 32 In Stall #9
 
Ten fresh pigs, their tails
pumping with pleasure, bubble
along her milk filled tappers.
But something deep inside her
is stuck.  Too long
since her last delivery
she is tangled in contraction,
too weak to push.  The wave
breaks, and drains away.
I am ready for this
to be over.  At three in the morning
I roll up my sleeve
and let her oven heat
wrap around my arm.  My hand
soaks through the dark.  Elbow
deep I find the fourth brother,
and by his gumdrop-slick hoof, pull
the last pig home.
 
Originally Published in  Poet Lore, 1986, V.81, N.3


House In The Middle Of A Field
 
I know of no one who has lived
here.  And it has been here forever,
a pivot we cramp machinery around
behind a full-throttled tractor.
The house could have been a corner post
so tight set it made no difference
how taut or in what direction a wire
stretched.  The foundation has settled.
Wind has chiseled the excitement
out of the wood, and the sun has left it
grey.  Its shingles are receding.
There are no curtains.  The front door
is gone, so it must be open.  Inside
I mingle with the musty scents eroding
from the crisp millers and mummified mice
hidden behind the layered, pastel paper
wilting from the walls.  Children
drift through bedroom doors playing
with antique toys.  Screened
by a common farmer face, a man sits
on his kitchen chair.  He stares
beyond a woman in a cotton dress
into clouds that might not
be rain.  I have done my duty.
And mine are the last boots
to arouse the dusty lull spread
across this cold wood floor.
On the windward side of the house
dad announces there is no better time
than now.  I stand back.  He lights
a match.  Flames lean from windows,
tattered flags at full mast.

Originally Published in Kansas Quarterly, 1987, V.19, N.1
Bareback On The Palomino
 
While rebound sounds
ricochet away from wings
at the bottom
corner
of a nighthawk's dive,
the horses wait.
Then, hoof bantering
from the top of the hill
to the fence, knowing
I have brought their oats,
their thrill stirs the scent
of grazed pasture grass
with the strolling fragrance
of wandered cattle.
Wind-cooled fresh, it mixes
with their own lathered odor
creating a homey smell
not found in any kitchen.
I catch the spirited one,
and while evening clouds
merge red in the west,
roll onto his back.
We melt into our own wind.
 
Originally Published in Paws & Tales, 1998, V.1

A Psychic Farmer Sees His Every New Year, or
Once Upon A Time In The Twilight Zone
 
It occurs on a Tuesday. 
By coincidence, June.  Hours
after he has climbed aboard
his tractor, turned the key,
throttle up, and spiraled
his way through a window
of boredom.  Given the view,
the farmer stares at the future
and sees that everything
behind him is ahead of him: 
Weeds wilt.  Others grow. 
The color of harvest blends
 
across wheat fields like sunrise. 
Men sweat.  Women hurry.
Combines labor.  Stubble fields
are tilled.   Hot winds blow.
Drought threatens or occurs. 
Thunderstorms, angry behemoths,
grumble.  Mad fists of lightening
strike.  Dog days lounge around, fat.
Hay is cut, baled, and stacked.
Markets fluctuate.  Soybeans,
sorghum, and corn grow,
flourish or not, then molt
 
to crisp brown.  Fall harvest
comes and goes like a last
dance.  The air cools.
Seed-wheat is meticulously
groomed into soil.  Cold
spills,  geese migrate
south across Kansas.  Leaves,
brittle with age, give up
and fall from trees. 
Pregnant cows indulge
in split bales of alfalfa.
Piglets nudge and bump milk                     
 
from sows' swelled nipples.
Tomato vines are pulled.
Last pumpkins rot.                                 
It snows.  The pond freezes.
Night lasts longer than day.
Calves appear.  Chores
acquire the redundant habits
of monotony.  A kaleidoscope
of yellow, baby chicks collage
beneath heat-lamps.  Rabbits
annoy the dog.   Green wheat fields
thicken.  Machinery is greased.
 
The sun flexes.  Weeds
emerge.  The cream-smooth
scent  of over-turned soil
melts into lungs.  Markets
fluctuate.  Spring crops
are planted.   It rains.  Seeds
sprout.  Cattle are returned
to pasture.  Cats have kittens. 
Chickens are butchered.
Warm winds ripple up
from Texas.  Wheat matures. 
The farmer drives south, turns
 
 
west at the five-mile-corner,
crosses Walnut Creek Bridge,
and travels the last stretch
to his field.  He parks his truck,
climbs aboard his tractor, turns
the key, throttles up, and spirals
his way through a window
of boredom.  Given the view,
the farmer stares at the past.
Dust lingers.  It is June.
Like always, this day is this.

Originally Published in Flint Hills Review, 2006, N.11
Visit To My First Home
​

No road comes here anymore.
But it's a good walk,
and on my way across the field
I throw clods at imaginary targets
still standing from before.
My eyes play along the creek,
and I remember things
I am told I can't:
chickens crowding the coop,
marbles in the sidewalk,
the time the dog and I
snuck off to grandpa's old place.
Burr oaks and elms, muscle bound
limbs scaled with leaves
brush the ground with shade.
Crippled, the iron gate
sags, its fence gone.  Iris hoist
their colors proud for surviving
the steel that kept us both
in the yard.  The branch
my tire-swing callused
while I walked on air
is tangled in the grass.
I kick dried brush
from my bedroom, and push
through the kitchen.  It's warm
standing where the porch
should be, and I wonder
if everyday is Sunday morning,
here, where no road comes
and no road leaves.


Originally published in A.I.D. Review, 1985, ​V. 1, # 1

Select poems from The Last Day of Harvest
  • Summer  |  Harvest  |  Fall  |  Winter  | Spring
Other Series
  • The Limestone Cowboy  |  As A...
Greg German
Kansas City, Kansas
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