February 2001

When I was a child of six or seven

I worked with my neighbor to sack the grain

Pouring from the chute of the threshing machine,

And he told me long after that I said to him then,

"It's been a hard year for us farmers."

The crops were lean and poor that year:

The elements had not been kind.

"Nature is not always kind,"

A fried once said to me when I

Viewed nature as a better judge than

We, of when we need to die.

My answers was we are not always

Kind, either, being a part

Of nature, too, its ebb and flow.

Now here the ground is firm beneath

My feet, while I become infirm.

I tread the earth and feel its strength.

The elements within me shift their course.

It is again a hard year.

But I have weathered hard years

Before as I am doing now.

At heart I am still a farmer --

Knowing, unknowing, unknowing, knowing --

Caretaking as best I can

Leaving the rest to time and chance

As Nature runs its course in me.

                        Lois Langland

                        February 9, 2001