My bedroom’s in the fields,
my kitchen’s in the ground.
Radishes restore me,
sunflowers fertilize me.
I’m nurtured by the cover crop
I cut down and turn over
in the belly of the earth.
I pollinate and I plow,
yoke barnyard to backyard,
feed the whole town,
talk farmer talk at supper table,
pass bowls of organic chard and
bushels of country charm.
I walk the farmer walk through
valleys of alfalfa and rows of wheat,
gather new potatoes and ripe tomatoes,
pledge allegiance to compost and mulch,
sing a pagan hymn to
fecund flowers and ungainly weeds,
watch the peas climb skyward,
take the seasons a second at a time,
in drought or flood,
wade through waves of spring,
inhale the heat of summer,
wrap autumn’s evening shadows
around my shoulders and wear
the light of the harvest moon
across my wildly beating heart.
Jonah Raskin is the author of ‘Marijuanaland’ and ‘Field Days: A Year of Farming, Eating and Drinking Wine in California,’ and is a frequent contributor to these pages.
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