A Bounteous Harvest

(my acknowledgement
to the loose canon of Robert Frost)

An above average snowfall

heavily swathed sage heather

followed by substantial unusual rainfall

punctuated months before, during and

after the growing season


delivered one of the

most hearty crop yields

in living memory

within the generations of men

of this (or any neighboring)

Norwegian bachelor farmer

long time residents

feeling like the sole housekeeper

of Lake Woebegone,

who can remember

the Edenic pasture with reluctance

raw bits and pieces mending wall

experiencing crushing childhood's end

weathered by their parents,

who as kids themselves

(during the worst

fear full Depression

in thee United States of America)

when countless farmers forced

by circumstance declared bankruptcy

locked out of hearth and home

no recourse 'cept to sell rural legacy...

family property deeds

(traced back to original settlers)

contrasts sharply with

plentiful, crucial, and

over abundant annual

precipitation, whereby these vestiges

of rural quaint lifestyle

awash with expansive lush cornfields,

whose silk like tassels

synchronously undulate

(sparsely dotting pastoral landscape),

blistered, calloused, and damned,

whether weathered by blizzards,

or pounded with powerful (one...two)

top notch pugilistic punch

topographical scars permanently earmark,

where Ole man winter relentlessly socked

or Mother Nature slammed a wall of water

saturating freshly mown hay,

which pungent odor

belied teeming flora and fauna

(albeit many organisms nearly invisible)

yet keenly observable to hawk eye,

also tempting black crows

to carrion camping

while a flock of seagulls

swoop down upon unsuspecting

school of fish,

and/or scurrying varmints.