It’s the immemorial feelings
I like the best: hunger, thirst,
their satisfaction; work-weariness,
earned rest; the falling again
from loneliness to love;
the green growth the mind takes
from the pastures in March;
the gayety in the stride
of a good team of Belgian mares
that seems to shudder from me
through all my ancestry.
~Wendell Berry “Goods”
The plow has savaged this sweet field
Misshapen clods of earth kicked up
Rocks and twisted roots exposed to view
Last year’s growth demolished by the blade.
I have plowed my life this way
Turned over a whole history
Looking for the roots of what went wrong
Until my face is ravaged, furrowed, scarred.
Enough. The job is done.
Whatever’s been uprooted, let it be
Seedbed for the growing that’s to come.
I plowed to unearth last year’s reasons—
The farmer plows to plant a greening season.
~Parker Palmer “Harrowing”
It’s not likely anyone would say I didn’t work hard enough.
After all, I come from a long line of human work-horses
who knew it takes sweat and tears, and sometimes bleeding.
Even so, all those years
I know I could have plowed more deeply than I did.
I could have thrown myself more fully
into the pull on the tugs,
shared the load more effectively,
shouldered the yoke with greater enthusiasm,
bent my neck down low with unbroken determination.
You could say somewhere
I lost the gayety in my stride,
and you would be right —
toward the end, I was trudging through the furrow,
bruised from turning up too many submerged rocks,
bumping into immoveable tree stumps,
tripping on hidden roots,
stuck in the deep mud
of long and lonely post-midnight hours.
You might even say the knowledge of a job well-done
lay at a depth my plow could ever reach.
I had seen others die in the harness,
never able to rest easy.
A few years ago I knew
the time had come
to shrug off the yoke,
shake off the bridle and bit,
shudder free of the harness.
On this side of the ground,
I find myself wondering and wandering,
the blinkers no longer impeding my vision,
feeling the morning sun on my unyoked withers.
Yet when I see an untilled field,
something in me even now
still tries to hold on to the plow —
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
Make a monthly donation
Make a yearly donation
Choose an amount
Or enter a custom amount
Your contribution is deeply appreciated.
Your contribution is appreciated.
Your contribution is appreciated.
