Editor’s Note: Debi grew up on a Minnesota farm. Harvest time was wonderful, but fraught with stress and hard work. The combines in the fields bring back many memories.
The dust rises in great gray clouds
From my combine harvesting the corn
So dry, it’s drought conditions
Not bad for those on a farm morn.
October’s calendar is a busy one
Work and more work day after day
Sunrise to sunset with little rest
What can a farmer say?
I signed up for this life I surely did
No chains that keep me here
The sweat and the dust is an elixir of sorts
It fills me and tethers me near.
With every tractor stuck in the mud
Every bale of hay stacked high
Brings me and the land close to Nirvana
A heaven you cannot buy.
I squint against the noon day sun
My worn and wrinkled face in a grin
It’s a contest with Mother Nature
Working happily to see who’ll win.
Copyright © 2024 by Debi Neville
While a city “girl” I have always lived just steps away from the farm life you so beautifully described.
Thanks for capturing life on a farm in fall. We lived on a small farm so harvest time brought extra long days for Dad who worked off the farm and kids who attended school. We all had to pitch in to gather the harvest before weather prevented it. Thanks for reminding me of memories on the farm now that I live in Rochester. Great job! 👍
Debi–You selected perfect pictures to accompany your poem. Although I did not grow up on a farm, my grandparents were poor wheat farmers in central North Dakota, and I understand the hard work, setbacks, struggles, but yet the nirvana that you mention. Farmers have a bond with the land that is hard for non-farmers to understand. You captured this beautifully in your poem. Congratulations!
Thanks for the fine poem Debi! I loved and recognized the line “The sweat and the dust are an elixir of sorts”… so true! Thanks so much for sharing!
You created a glimpse of farm life during harvest that I can feel since I grew up on a farm also, although wheat was the crop I saw. The images are the same. Thanks for writing.