adjective. characteristic of a farmer
Friends,
I have been buried for weeks in the work of this, and I am so proud. In between the chickens and the children and the cooking and the working, I managed to get this latest issue of the journal completed. It is the most beautiful issue I have ever created, and I hope you love it. Please check it out. I believe it will be good for the soul!
The Chicken (Volume 4, Issue 1)
I have a few hand made items still coming–and maybe some bumper stickers–but I managed to get the online shop ready for small business Saturday! The books are on sale, and the quilts and candles are back!
I am hoping to raise money for the journal. Getting this online shop was big because the Etsy fees were so big that we were losing money on the books. I knew, if I was going to keep making books, I was going to have to make my own store. I am so proud of myself for building these items in the shop, and if you are looking for some good reading or a practical gift for someone for the holidays (the potholders are so handy, and the organic beeswax candles last forever), please consider supporting this endeavor.
Thank you all for reading and for supporting Farmer-ish!
PS The winner of the beautiful Farmer-ish mug is Kristen Stone! Kristen, thank you for reading and leaving a comment. I will be in touch! And, if you didn’t win, please stay tuned because I have at least two more giveaways before the holidays.
I have been saving this for Earth Day. Happy Earth Day, everyone! I hope this poem moves you the way it did me.
What Would I Say to You If I Were Dying
James Sands
Perhaps I would say, “That is a melodramatic title,”
but then I would say, and quickly, “I’m really not,
(just to counter your grandiosity)
not more than the usual, anyway, but
there is a chance you are.”
When the landscape has changed
to the barren architecture of despair,
I will be here.
Still, there is something to be said, I suppose,
for the going away—the absolute rest, for one;
perhaps you will end in view of a stand of fall maple
when the sky is orange-yellow turning late October night,
and a great murder of crows will suddenly swirl and swoop
to fill the air and the soon to be bare branches of trees
with black shapes and caws, raucous calls, beating wings, all
just to say no, you won’t be alone;
there will be others at their end too,
so many others—all taken by you.
When the landscape has changed
to the barren architecture of despair,
I will be here, waiting
where the moon is a ghost.
There can be solace in that—for some, I suppose,
and I will wait for those to return in different anatomy
rendered flesh by some future scripted sea,
where the waters lap rhythmically and silent
against a shore once more primordial
preparing an anthem, sonorous, resonant, and vital,
to the fecund paean of unrelenting life
rebuilt from the stars, nurtured
among the remnants and scars
of your human strife.
When the landscape has changed
to the barren architecture of despair,
I will be here, waiting
where the moon keeps ghosts
on the acrid night air
for the smoke that remains
of your madness to clear.
photo credit: NASA
We have spent the day continuing our efforts to process the last of the garden (because some things taste better after the freeze and the freeze came very late this year) and button up the homestead for the winter. It’s a lot of work, but it’s extra this year because we are also having to make updates to the chicken coop.
Still, I have also been working on something extra special on the side–a poetry collection in honor of the Winter Solstice. The collection is an idea I have had for three years. I love reading poetry in the winter. It’s my hygge and healing, and I had the idea that it would be the most beautiful to have a collection that was nothing but Farmer-ish poetry–all focused on nature, farming, the cycles of nature and our connections to it all. I am so proud to say that we have some fantastic poetry in this book.
In this collection, we have a poem from the Poet Laureate of Maine, who is also a homesteader, from the Poet Laureate of Waffle House because she is truly awesome, from many award-winning poets, and from some poets who will be published in this collection for the first time. The poems are all just little treats. They will make you think, make you smile, make you remember your connection to the seasons and how winter can be so beautiful.
I know times are so hard all over. Not everyone is going to have $20 to spend on a book of poems, but if you can, please support this project. I don’t think you will be disappointed. It is a labor of love from the idea in my mind, to my brilliant friend who is co-editing with me, to my talented friend who created the art for the cover, to my dear husband who spent the day processing carrots with me and is the kitchen right now finishing up a poem.
Here is a link to the pre-order from our Farmer-ish Etsy shop. The collection will ship out the first week of December, arriving in plenty of time for the Winter Solstice. Thank you for reading. Thank you for following. Please share if you can.
Day 279 of 365
Today is the Super Bowl. I grew up in a culture that worshipped football (Texas), but I am not even sure who is in the Super Bowl this year. I think it is Philadelphia because I have a Facebook friend who lives in Philadelphia, and she has been very excited.
I do know it is also Poetry Sunday. I first learned about this about five years ago, and it’s always on Super Bowl Sunday. You are supposed to share poetry on social media. It’s surprising, I know, but Poetry Sunday hasn’t taken off the way Super Bowl Sunday has, but I feel like any excuse to celebrate poetry is a good one. Since I am married to a farmer/poet, I wanted to share one of my favorite poems from the journal.
You can also explore so many beautiful and interesting poems on the Poetry page of the journal. One of the things that makes me so proud of Farmer-ish is that there are not many places that will publish poems about chickens and wood boxes, but these things are very important.
I hope you enjoy. Happy Poetry Sunday!
A Deliberate Life
by James Sands
I will take this path, then,
bare, leading to not quite austere,
not quite bereft, not quite alone
I will take what coin I have to spend,
my allotment of time as human,
beyond the artifice of men
And I will be mine own Thoreau,
take pleasure in my own garden,
the sound of stone on my own hoe
I will watch, and I will ponder
as seasons begin and seasons end,
and then again and again
I will wonder how trees
feel about wind, if it depends
on the measure of storm
And I will cleave to the earth
where I will grow—like all
to return when I end