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Limestone9.com
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 |
Winter Selections
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One Morning While Taking Straw From The Barn
During the night, snow has crawled through a crack in the barn and curled itself into a small drift the shape of a white cat sleeping on straw. It rests, content as a feather, on the first bale to be chucked out the hayloft door. The drift, I decide, is a challenge to the order of things in the barn. And I work for it --- pry the second choice from the stack like a brick taken from the middle of a wall. And the next, and the next, each bale removed out of its intended order until, when my back is turned, a floater lets go at the top and slides like ice headfirst into the cat's bed. Parts of winter soak through the air, settle with last summer's hot dust turned cold, and I chuck another bale. Originally Published in Permafrost, 1987, V.9, #1 |
Tuesday Morning Hog Sale
--Lot 27-- In the ring, hogs. A one time parade. Some more beautiful than others. A display of the latest loins and hams revolving to the snap of a herder's whip. The auctioneer, his voice chiming through the sour kraut smell of animal fear, catches moody silent bids —the lax-wrist twist of a dangled cigarette, a twitched ear, an off-eye glance—cast by jury-faced buyers, animals themselves, their butts anchored to the denim-buffed bleachers, waiting for the paperwork |
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A Farmer's Son, Age 25, Gives Up And Moves To The City,
or The Implications of Liquidating A Farm Operation The only thing that stays is the dog. The microwave and T.V. go in the backseat, most of the clothes piled on top of that; a potted plant on the floorboard, and a lamp. Suitcases and scattered toys in the trunk. Stuff Chapter 7 dictates personal. The kid goes in the middle, the wife behind the wheel. The farmer's son drives the pick-up loaded with more stuff. Tables. Chairs. The couch. The bed. Generations of dried sweat dust from dirt roads. When the farmer's son turns onto the highway he follows the yellow lines. He looks back, but not over his shoulder. This time he imagines running head-on into the banker and they both die. He thinks about this, and doesn't give a damn. Waylon, Willy, and a bunch of other boys get-down in the radio and keep him company. About noon some guy with a well-behaved voice comes on. Barrows and gilts are steady to 50 higher in Omaha. December wheat, five-and-a-half lower. The farmer's son bends the man's words between the numbers, finds some FM, Rock and Roll. And he don't listen to country music anymore Originally Published in Kansas Quarterly, 1990, V.22, N.3 |
Tumbleweed
A dry comet shooting across the deep space of green wheat fields frostbitten with winter you pass by quick, bullet weightless, going south, just ahead of the wind, sure of your aim, never looking back as you leap the ditch, and cross the road, stumbling into next year’s fallow, insane with speed, jump-roping past jackrabbits stopped to watch, their ears bent twixt, startled, as you scream away Originally Published in Potpourri, 1998, V.10, N.4 |
Coyote
There you are.
emerged
from nowhere.
Like an old man's
memory. Inspired
by an urge.
A rumor on its way
across January.
Balanced
on the tight-rope
of a hill's
horizon.
Paw after paw,
you check
behind you
for your future.
Leery
of your next
step,
suspicious
of your last.
Invisible
when I look again.
Maybe you were there.
Maybe not.
Originally published in Seedhouse, 2001, V. 3, #6
There you are.
emerged
from nowhere.
Like an old man's
memory. Inspired
by an urge.
A rumor on its way
across January.
Balanced
on the tight-rope
of a hill's
horizon.
Paw after paw,
you check
behind you
for your future.
Leery
of your next
step,
suspicious
of your last.
Invisible
when I look again.
Maybe you were there.
Maybe not.
Originally published in Seedhouse, 2001, V. 3, #6
