YES, I KNOW


    Yes, I know I am not
    a farmer
    and that you
    are
    not
    a gypsy
    or a king:
    Have you ever
    heard
    of
    poetic license?
    It is when
    for instance
    the poet
    writes
    buffaloes
    instead
    of buffalo
    because
    their
    numbers
    are now
    so
    thin
    &
    she
    does
    not
    want
    the remaining
    tiny
    herds
    to feel
    lonely.

    I claim
    farming ancestry:
    Generations
    going back
    sometimes
    farther
    than
    I wish
    to look:
    All those Africans
    & their
    yam & cassava fields
    the Indians &
    their corn
    &
    beans
    the English
    & their
    collard plants
    the Scots
    their
    what?
    crabgrass?
    maybe oats!
    the Irish
    their potatoes
    the Elves
    their
    herbs.

    All killing themselves
    now
    by the thousands
    farmers
    killing themselves
    by
    their own
    calloused
    hands;
    not just
    in India,
    where suicide
    among
    farmers
    is
    a leading cause
    of
    death
    but in
    America
    too
    they are doing
    it.

    How can this be?
    And how can
    we
    bear
    the
    loss?

    So I claim
    them
    in
    myself:
    I
    am
    that.

    I too
    run after
    the Earth
    as it disappears
    beneath
    my feet;

    I too
    mourn
    machines moving
    over her face
    without
    empathy
    or
    love
    of
    her.

    Even so,
    you are
    quite right:
    I am not
    a "farmer"
    as most
    would think
    of
    it:
    Tilling my tiny
    plots
    of corn
    &
    beans;
    collards
    &
    squash;
    strawberries:
    Leaning more
    &
    more
    on the strength
    & youth
    of
    others
    as time
    moves on.

    No, I was born to grow,
    alongside my garden of plants,
    poems
    like
    this one:

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]


    YOU CONFIDE IN ME


    You confide
    in me
    that
    you
    are lonely,

    that romance
    juicy
    &
    red
    never stays
    long
    at
    your
    house.
    But when
    I visit
    you
    what
    do I
...