dlherrmann

Family Plowing    

 

I plow the paper with a pen

engaged as the family has been

in cultivation: sowing and reaping.

 

I plow the paper with a pen,

in a solitary field -

it always has been.

 

My father was a farmer,

his father, and his before him;

we are plowmen in our rows.

 

I plow the paper with a pen -

rows of words across the space

in neat and even lines.

 

Though plowing is the family business,

my \"machineries\" now differ

for a different kind of crop.

 

But the plowing is the same:

long straight lines

across unmarked fields.