Table
regarding the importance of ‘table’.
Barbara Bush said it this way:
“The most important decisions in America
are made around the kitchen table.”
As always, Barbara’s wisdom was front and center.
Grandma Warfel
near pioneer
drew a line defining:
“True friends feet
have been under your table
and yours under theirs.”
The family table is always defined
with mom and dad in specific places
honored and respected, noted always
Throughout history
it’s just the same
Everyone has a place
to start
square, round, or long rectangle
no matter
How natural Jesus was
at the table head
how unnatural he arose
with towel and bowl circled round
washing each one’s feet
but also with others
he joined with them at table
and he speaks to us, each one,
inviting us to His table
Living water offered…
Bread broken for you, for me,
bread that nourishes forever…
Bridges are built, maintained
at table
“I’m so glad, I’m a part,
of the family of God.
I’ve been washed in the fountain,
cleansed by His blood.
Joint heirs with Jesus
as I travel this sod.
I’m a part of the family,
the family of God.”
Lin 10/2012
Wet Air Morning
as I pop out the door to snag the paper
the air engulfs me like a big wet kiss!
a wet air morning for certain.
Soaking my world
the fields and grass are laden
humidity must be a hundred
A pin drop would make it rain!
Far to the south
the Gulf offers up its moisture
and winds duly christened travel
a giant swirl brings them here
to bathe the plains with life giving water
naturally
sufficient
to make this a garden
Lush, comes to mind,
in seasons warm
lovely, when cold
slides down in winter
as the sun bakes the plants for plucking
Shed doors fly open, late morning
machines growl out
crawling like giant caterpillars
in the fields
Devouring,
spewing
sifting, sorting
pouring out the fruits of summer
Into the darkness the machines roar on
pushing against the night
then, moisture again, settles in
smothering plants and machines to silence
Another day of harvest
Selah,
Lin
Harvesting soybeans, 10/2012
Grandpa’s Hands
sits a sculpture done in love
Albrecht Durer’s Betende Hande
a labor of love by a brother
for his brother who loved
Just this evening I came in
weary from a day of labor
hands smudged with grease and dirt
from a day of farming
Warm water flooded my cold hands
as I rubbed and soaped them slowly
rinsed, I dried them, and I paused,
I have my grandpa’s hands!
Not so surprising, really,
as fifty years of farming
have ever shaped and molded
young boy hands to older farmer
Tanned, marked with scars,
big strong hands from exercise
decades shaped and strengthened
Happy to have
all my fingers!
The bones grown bigger
they say that happens
my grip grown stronger
I can pull a wrench, lift a boulder,
shape and cut metal
I AM grandpa Warfel
I’ve become him!
Well, I like that!
He was my hero,
my daddy sub
First memory is
sittin on his lap, driving a little tractor
(big then, small now!)
He and I had lots of races
he could run quite fast
(though now I know, only yards)
together we worked, side by side,
he coached me all along
We fed cows and milked them,
pulled weeds and built fences
Painted barns and fence post tops
Pleated rope from baling twine
Sat side by side in church
over on the far north side
Big Ben ticking away an hour
We chowed down grandma’s cooking
ate fresh veggies from the garden
butchered cows and pigs and chickens
Oh, a thousand, ten thousand things!
And now I have my grandpa’s hands!
Selah, Lin 10/2012
Grandpa in the mirror, age 71
Alfred Warfel, 1884-1954
Profile on the book cover…Grandpa looks like his Grandpa!
Morning Moon
to do the livestock chores
Pitch the hay down
from the mow
shovel the grain
into cow shined troughs
slap the stantions
on the milk cows necks
and do the milking
The walk to the barn
only a hundred steps
was lit by stars that twinkled
and by the morning moon.
I wasn’t “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”!
The cattle knew we were coming
they greeted us in moo talk
even the cats had something to say
as they scampered along beside us
Walking back to breakfast
the moon still shone
pristine, in the dawn soft sky
The stock, the stars, the moon, the earth
go about their ways, a habit
while, in sharp contrast,
we can ‘know’.
and early rising grandparents
the present
and those whose lights are on
and the future
Who holds it? How will it be?
We can wonder, dream and plan
Good morning Moon!
I’m on my way
to think and do a thousand things
I’ve never done before!
Hug my wife and out the door
to use my mind and muscles
to fix and fuel and operate machines
that gather in the summer’s bounty
Food, fuel and fiber are my business
People are in line waiting, expecting
and I
I will deliver
Selah,
Lin 10/2012
Touch and Permission
with hands at sides, and a bow
Another culture folks fold their hands together
prayer like, and do a head nod bow
Somewhere back in our ancestry
swords were often present
firmly gripped in one’s right hand
Noted by their absence
an empty hand was extended
to grip another person’s right hand
Touch
and permission
The pastor greets the flock
service ended, folk headed home
words offered, exchanged, with all
and hands offered, taken,
sometimes held in lingering, caring ways
The politician reaches out
shaking all the hands they can
moving, always moving
to shake someone else’s hand
Glancing touches
like a thrown rock skipping across the lake
A young man, a young lady,
sit side by side
signals passing
“Okay”
his hand grasps hers
with her permission
and the world becomes far away
two, on life’s highway
to becoming one….
burning up with fever
a mother’s hand, cool, soft, gentle,
touches the forehead
the suffering somehow is relieved
Another child running
falls and scrapes a knee
Mom or dad picks them up and hugs them
and pats them gently on the back, soothing
and the pain softens steadily
Then there’s the leap across a chasm
and full blown hugs are done
Parents and children
and special ones, with permission
are hugged and held in abandon
Pausing, seconds really, in a lifetime
but oh, so precious!
We humans have a dimension
where only we can go
Minds and hearts combine to claim:
“He touched me.
Oh,He touched me…
and oh, the joy that floods my soul.
He touched me
and made me whole.”
Permission granted
Selah,
Lin, 10.2012
1882
but just ‘yesterday’ in history…
Great grandpa was a walking
Tolono depot just behind
Southwest into the prairie
what he saw was not a goldmine
but a ‘blackmine’
Soil soft on his footsteps
speaking to him in farmer tones
“This could be really good, really somethin'”
“This could be our home”.
So he bought a field in ’82,
and planted himself right there.
He quickly built a lean to
shelter against the winter
for great grandma and the kids.
A horse bought, and a sled
he trekked across the snow
Parkville, sawmill, boards he bought
for the first home to be built in summer.
Little great uncle Fred had a job
a ridin’ on that sled.
Last load coming home
he sat upon the lumber
waving a lantern at the wolves
who slinked along behind
First house built in ’83
great grandma was in heaven
but here on earth she worked so hard
supporting her man in the field
Monday’s she carried water
two buckets at a time
from the open ditch just north of the house
so Tuesday could be washday.
Too big a job, carrying water,
to do both jobs same day.
By and by great grandpa
happened to be nearby, when
in Tolono a rail car was in the siding
piled high with wooden barrels
Giant ones called ‘hogsheads’
were for sale that day
He bought one, and wagoned it home.
Buried it next to the kitchen
situated just so
a downspout from the house roof
could be directed in.
He piped it from the kitchen sink
aided by a handpump
great grandma could stand at the sink and pump
and carry the buckets no more
My grandma witness the first water
and then great grandma’s tears bore the message:
Happiness about a burden passed!
Seventy miles, to the south
John Delano Warfel settled
veteran of The War
the Buckeye native planted his farm
and raised a great big family
Little Alfred was born there
about the same time Ida was
on this farm
and thus begins another chapter
in ‘Farmers on this Land’.
that brought H.J. from Chicago,
brought Alfred up from Rose Hill
to the Tolono station.
That’s the same rail station, by the way,
where Abe Lincoln spoke his last words
on the way to Washington.
Some fifty years from ’82,
H.J. hung it up.
Moved into Sadorus
two miles to the west.
Took a little doing
to get great grandma there
several months went by
before she would give up
and follow him to town.
Alfred and Ida moved in here
the second generation.
Again war was to tumble
family plans and movings
’41 December, Pearl Harbor happened,
grabbing my folks and farming.
Hank, my dad, was called up,
and off he went to war
as John D. had some 70 years before.
Mom, my sister and I,
stayed anchored here on this place
as battle after battle waged
across the face of earth.
One year.
Two years
Three, then June, the sixth,
and Europe was invaded
Americans poured into France
my dad was among them, fighting
to push the face of evil back
One week
Two weeks
One month
Two
and then one more explosion
Captain Hank Warfel was no more.
Except in a metal casket, and some memories.
Skip forward thirty years
and his son came on the scene
to move into the house built
the year that he was born.
He came home, with his family,
to take up plow and planter
and harvest as his fathers did
Watch his children grow
Time, like soldiers, marches on,
and now the son,
the grandson,
the great grandson’s
grown old
Seven decades and some change
his boots walked on this ground.
Babies grown, moving away,
making their way in the other world
but rooted in this soil
His song and theirs
is “The Song of the Prairie’.
Selah,
Lin 10/2012