Showers and Thunderstorms Likely
what’s to like about more of them?
Well, you see,
I’m not in charge
nor are you or we!
We simply get to watch
and listen
and measure
and wait
some more!
Days as a kid
bicycle my ‘horse’
street drains would plug
and lakes ensue
What fun to hit high speed
aim for the lake
raise my feet from the pedals
Hit the water
and coast on through
usually!
If I didn’t make it
I had to pedal
my tennies would fill with water
muddy water
yukky water
and mom wouldn’t be happy
when socks once white
came to her muddy colored
Now I scout my fields
my pickup truck on the road
easing through the water
Water rushes from the fields
ever anxious to find a river
make a river
lakes in my field are growing
and I’m waiting
In her 90’s she’d advise
“We’ve always had a crop”
Born where I live
her history spanned a century
her parents broke the sod
dug ditches, and drained the swamps
“We’ve always had a crop”
Repeat after me? Say it again!
Showers and thunderstorms likely?
I’ve plenty of things to do
like write a poem!
clean the shop
clean my office
mow and mow again!
Go to a movie
read a book
visit a nursing home
have dinner with some friends!
How about a date tonight?
It’s probably been too long!
Just take the umbrella
cause it’s still the prairie
where ‘horizontal rain’ reigns!
Lin, Showers of Blessings, April 2011
Run Like the Wind
to run like the wind
zigging and zagging
around trees and fences
Jumping over small things
and charging ahead
Going nowhere
just running and breathing
and letting muscles go
Energy pouring
heart pounding
Oh, it feels good!
The great race I know
was now long ago
Olympics, in Paris France
A Scot was preparing, qualifying
a race at a time
but one race stood out
He was pushed over and fell
the pack running on
He rolled over and saw them
Was it too late?
No matter, he chased
Harder and harder he ran
and then it happened
He “ran in the spirit”
arms flailing, head back
He ran with the wind
and he was gaining
faster and faster he ran
catching, passing one
then another
At the finish line
he won
Unbelievable! It happened!
in some definitions
Moving among us
bathing, surrounding, covering
A chorus goes:
“God is moving
by His Spirit
Moving through all the earth
Signs and wonders
when God moveth
Move, Oh Lord, in me.”*
Today, this day,
set your sails on high
Run yourself, or watch
Move with the Wind.
Lin Warfel, 04/09
* author unknown
Ode to a Field Mouse
a ploughman wrote of a mouse
Behind a horse
he watched her scurry
across the fresh plowed field
Burns sat and pondered
what he’d done
turning the home site over
A tender fellow
more a poet
than a striving farmer
guilt surrounded him.
I, in turn, have seen my mouses!
When I was younger
I sent them packing!
My horse a tractor
some three hundred power
moving like a runner
no hesitation
hour after hour
opening the soil for winter
Back then the mouse had chances
slim to almost nothing
but times have changed
and so have I
In my getting older
I might even stop my steed
and take my pen
a muse a bit about him
Remembering my dad
to my chagrin
when he was my age then
would stop the tractor
let the little mouse pass
then roar on down the field
Now I do too!
Respect for life
has grown and grown
as children and grandchildren come
I learn with fascination
the systems there
in little creatures
and find their study good
where mice don’t count
but more importantly
neither do babies
if they’re not wanted
it is their fate
to be plowed away for pleasure
Over a million
go that way
each year in my home land
and more expected now
‘Inconvenient’, some do say,
so flushed away they are
Across the world in China
girl babies were set away
left to die alone
We? We criticized…
I wonder why
We cannot see ourselves.
That brings me back
to the Scottish ploughman
who pondered long and hard
and said this to us one day:
O wad some pow’r
the Giftie gie us
to see oursils
as others see us….*
Lin, Plowing on a Winter’s Day 11/08
*Robert Burns, 1759-1796
Global Warming
right and left
middle of the country too
Global warming
is the culprit
so some scientists say
Learned fellows
degrees in tow
study deeply
numbers and more
then make their premise
give it to us
‘Best guess’, might be
a better thought
Ten year cooling
they tell us now
along with ‘climate change’
Cooling is warming
is hard to take
for us simple folk
Doesn’t help
three decades back
the self same people said
“Ice age coming”
‘Be prepared”
We have the figures here
It’s proven.
Said and done
Prepare for cold and ice
(of course)
more of everything
except my toes
tell me I’m cold
and beg for warmer sox!
Please stay tuned
for a different page
wherein we’re told the story
to be care takers
of our planet
and ourselves
and each other…
It will be cold
it will be hot
there will be change for certain
we have to keep on tryin’
to keep a straight face
when learned fellows
do their best….
Lin 2/10
Rain Softened World
to the mailbox, a habit
was padding on a softened carpet
The air was gently cleaned
from harvest dust and more
misty, sprinkled rain
had done its work
Red and yellow maple leaves
still falling
lay wet on the green grass
making my footsteps silent as I trod
The beloved soil is soaking it in
picture a lady (discretely) in bath
exquisite the gentling time
softening with the moisture
has tiny diamond drops on darkened branches
and the pointed leaves drip ever so slowly
it needed rain as well
After some very dry weeks
the rain stops harvest, for a moment
so the farm folks are catching up inside
repairing themselves and their machinery
a second cup of coffee
not on the run!
Some cultures do a bath, regularly,
as a leisurely respite, a sigh
an ‘ahhhhh’
The earth does it too!
Enjoy!
Lin Harvest 2011
Mud
love each other
make the world go round
Sometimes, just sometimes,
our cup runs over
and creates a problem
Stuck! We say
Stuck in the mud!
Not a happy time…
A giant machine
some 15 tons
25 by 30 by 12
on giant wheels
six feet tall
purring along so smoothly
Slowing, slowing, finally stopping
sinking deeper, deeper, deeper
Hit reverse! Back it out!
Hope! Ah! Won’t go backward either!
Think! Ponder!
Do something quickly!
Sitting is not an option!
Forward again!
Give her the gun!
Just get a little farther
to solid ground
Back and forth,
back and forth,
maybe sinking deeper….
Mud is flying
from the wheels
Argh!
or a cable, a hundred feet
what to hook it on to help
Oh the ruts!
Poor poor soil!
To be so ripped asunder….
Harvester rescued
back at the shop
plastered with nice black muck
Power washer, going full blast
now piles of mud lying about
Like clothes from a teenager
piled higher and deeper
another mess to deal with
The corn’s still there
waiting for me
waiting for a day of harvest
when
A giant machine
some 15 tons
25 by 30 by 12
on giant wheels
six feet tall
will purr along smoothly
“By the sweat of your brow,
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground
since from it you were taken’…
Selah, LIn Harvest 09/Mud