Planting the Flag
74 years ago
has a lifetime of
planting the flag!
I’ve seen him do it
time and again
courage is the backbone of leadership
and he’s got it!
School district train wreck
finances askew
teachers on the walk
somebody needs courage
plant a flag
draw a line in the sand
know how to add, subtract
understand
soil is precious
somebody needs to plant a flag
understand
we’re not doing it right
Here’s a better way!
Plant a flag, John, plant a flag!
So happy birthday,
Him Who Plants a Flag!
Well done!
Lin 2/2015
John Walter Fisher
Used to…
where buggies rolled along
where people heated rocks
to warm their ice cold feet
cars and trucks now run
rubber balloon tires
springs and shock absorbers
roll across the prairie blacktops
delivering folks here and there
Engines purr where horses snorted
pulling loads with ease
comforts taken for granted
in the winter cold
“Cold” did I say?
Nine below with wind
chill to the bone quickly
but on with the heater
flowing warm air
toasting the smiling occupants
Used to be, so different
on the farm in Illinois
Prairie State, and still
broad expanses treeless
freezing all it can
colder
and colder
and colder still
long nights wrap us in snow and ice
while winds do their best
to chill all that are warm blooded
Amazing, the squirrels, the birds,
the animals who live out of doors
surviving, seeming oblivious
to the cold
They’re unchanged
hardy
just like always
Used to be is still here
Oh my!
How we have changed!
Lin, 9 below, 2/2015
Deep Draughts*, and The American Farmer
they labeled it
The rest of the story is
it’s all about farming
Year of Our Lord
2015
A baker’s dozen of Ph.Ds
sharing hearts and souls
with a hundred fifty farmers
and their supporters
The very best
from one of the very best
lecturing and answering questions
Getting their minds and arms
around the issues that drive us
Dollars and sense and marketing
cover crops and all things agronomy
Inputs and insects
diseases and herbicides
Best Management Practices
spelled out, numbered out
weather and soil
Ah, soil.
We definitely don’t call it…
Dirt.
Soil. We respect it.
Live with it. Sleep with it.
Study it six ways from Sunday!
two days, thirteen hours engaged
with more to come
Two days on government
rules and regulations
laws and lawyers and courts
Legislators and bureaucrats engaging
back and forth with ideas
where we are
where we want and need to go
and how we might get there
Behind the meetings
preparing for planting
Machinery repaired and tuned
seeds and supplies filling sheds
At the ready for the coming day
Charge!
The deep, deep draughts* of farming
Like a cool drink after baling hay
all day
Information flows like rivers
from labs and test plots to the farmers
Oh, how they drink all winter!
Researchers anxious to share
audiences eager to learn
year after year after year!
Always in discovery mode
Study the problem
Figure it out! (I love that part!)
Try it out for the better
More efficient
More productive
No turning back!
The brew that is true!
Lin 2/2015
* 37 definitions of the word! I like ‘something that is taken in by drinking or inhaling’
Boards from Parkville
Find me settled in
Family room, they call it
And indeed it is
5 red sweatered kids
Pictured above the fireplace
Me in my recliner
Good light, good book, warm fire
The walls are aged red barn boards
Hauled here by horse
A hundred years ago
The Parkville sawmill fed our farm
House and barn and out buildings all
With materials to last a lifetime
And two
And three
Now four, generations.
From 1898 to 1972
The barn stood strong and true
Setting on big boulders
Its beams endured the winds and rains
The giant mow held hay
The south side a milking parlour
The northside winter comfort
For pigs and cows and us
Started our day right early
Three thirty we were up
Coal oil lanterns in our hands
We hung them on the wall
And started milking cows.
Fast forward thirty years
No cows. No pigs. No horses.
The barn came down but
We saved the boards from Parkville.
They line the walls in the family room
Soft barn red, weathered,
A touch of gray like me
They wrap the family with history
Horse drawn, barn service
They hold family pictures
And seasonal decor
Still shielding the family
Still serving
Selah Lin January 2015
Grinding Cold
sifting winter’s cold
adding sun minutes here and there
stretching daylight hours
Cold toes and fingers
stiff but not with age
grasp the icy handles
buckets and shovels and my little stool
and I park next to Bessie
Her milk plays its notes
striking, ringing the cold metal
as the cats, lined up, sit watching
waiting for a shot of breakfast
Now and then I squirt the cats
and they spring to action, licking
oh, so happy for fresh warm milk
freezing what it can
the earth, rock hard,
is waiting, not complaining
We grind feed for stock
throw down hay from the mow
head back to the house for breakfast
Shedding frozen clothes
the coal stoker toasts us quickly
the giant iron creature roars
heating the house and us
Winter is so wearing, so long
we wonder when, if ever
the birds will sing, the grass will grow
Hold on! hold on!
Lin, mid February, 2015
childhood on the farm
Bindings
warp and woof of words and pages
fibers woven into threads and strings
woods woven into threads and chapters
Front cover, back cover,
bound and determined to state
the notions and ideas of humankind
It’s those bindings that get them shared
Not one reader or two, but hundreds
and thousands and sometimes a million
or more
Consider the Christian Bible
words and pages of people stories
bound together by the idea
that there is a god
One God, holy
the binding for all mankind
So the creation of fibers
of threads and strings
that will not be broken
In the beginning and the now story
and an ending, somewhere
out there
knowing someone cares
we spend our lives learning
how much
our pages are laid
one upon the next
tiny book, large book, a volume
created and creating
so in need of bindings
Welcome to The Book
history of the ages
words of wisdom, enduring
for all time
your time
my time
tomorrow’s time too
Page by page as our book is built
We need to seek those enduring pages
the bindings that can keep us strong, intact,
and give us meaning
Lin 2/2015