It’s endlessly interesting to view farming through the prism of the so-called outside world. Often, what seems to get non-farm folks very excited has absolutely no relevancy whatsoever on a farm. Take “spring break” for example–or any holiday, frankly. Farm work goes on, regardless of what day it falls on the calendar. And people must eat! What a time to be alive, when these facts are muddied without consequences. In all earnestness, I find it extraordinarily entertaining.

Here’s a piece that pokes around a bit with balance. In the non-farming world, there always seems to be a rush to get somewhere, to do something, to be someone. It’s worth asking: What’s on the other side?

Farm Poem #4

On a farm there’s no spring break,
Instead, a spring bend:
Mountain twigs ice-tipped melting
Into rivulets,
Into rivers.

Richard Feynman said
Fire is sequestered sunlight
Released. Stretching,
These story arcs
Are seasonless.

Where does winter go?
Into stones and bones
Deep beneath the earth.
To the other side!
Where everyone wants to go

Until we don’t;
Until frozen, we thaw.