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