Tag: plainness

I have grown tired of the moon, tired of its look of astonish-
ment, the blue ice of its gaze, its arrivals and departures, of
the way it gathers lovers and loners under its invisible wings,
failing to distinguish between them.

I have grown tired of so much that used to entrance me,
tired of watching cloud shadows pass over sunlit grass,
of seeing swans glide back and forth across the lake,
of peering into the dark, hoping to find
an image of a self as yet unborn.

Let plainness enter the eye,
plainness like the table on which nothing is set,
like a table that is not yet even a table.
~Mark Strand “Nocturne of the Poet Who Loved the Moon” from Almost Invisible

I’m only 24 hours into a week-long winter northeaster blow with sub-zero windchills. Already I want to hang up my Carhartts and retire my Muck Boots and toss my work gloves for a warmer easier life somewhere else.

This is just plain hard being a farmer. I feel like I’m losing my bona fides as a tough-as-nails rural person.

Nothing that entrances me about living on a farm in temperate weather is remotely attractive now. Windstorms like this mean I worry our power will go out, the generator won’t work, the water will freeze up and we’ll fall and break bones … and, and, and…

So many fourth dimensional worries, whining, and weariness to spare.

What I seem to forget is that the generations of tough people I descend from made it through far worse than this. They didn’t do it as a hobby, like us; it was their livelihood. Trees were felled and sawed to become tables and furniture and fences and roofs and walls of houses and barns. Animals gave milk and meat and fields yielded grain and hay and gardens and orchards grew enough to store for winter food.

A few days of winter misery is a small price to pay for that kind of sustainability.

Let the plainness of the past inspire the plain hard work needed today and over the next few days.

It is worth doing it without complaining because it is the plain hard work needed. It always has been.