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Author's Note: As community can be defined many ways, this poem, inspired
by a photograph from a WPA Midwest photographic anthology from the 20's
and 30's, portrays an expansive vintage rural community tied together by
common individual life styles and experiences.
Tethered To The Land
( Midwest Plains)
Born in a cornhusk feather bed
Many miles from city medicine
Conditioned by a solar clock
Untempered here by Edison
Bathed in bucket lime water spa
Quarried by a windmill
Clothed in homespun fashion dried
Strung out from whitewashed windowsill
Suckled on butterfat fresh from cow
Unfettered by convention
Fed sun dried grain from basket filled
By McCormick's new invention
Unhemmed young hellion spirits stretch
With plenty of space to run
Bodies toughened by hard work
And baked out in the sun
In prime of life a mate is sought
And wooed with sacred vows
To perpetuate the grand estate
Of property, corn, and cows
Wide sky days and star drenched nights
Send thoughts toward heaven scanning
As Summer's heat and Winter's cold
Breed seasonal family planning
A solitary tree shaded grave site
Punctuates the plains
Where hand wrought seedbed furrows
Make art of growing pains
As generation to generation
Springs forth with infant's cry
When time has come to plant this pod
Under tree dormant let me lie.
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