The farm is hosting a spring reading group for some south end folks – this past evening we reflected on what has brought us to farming. Lots of things bring me here, but here is a poem that I wrote about why I farm – at least why I’m farming today!
Why I Farm…
Because onetime, backpacking with teens,
I saw one look forward, unknowningly at the curtain of green.
She found it fearful, unyielding, closed.
Today i watched a cormorant poop and dive.
Most birds poop before flying.
Are the mechanics of diving down perhaps like flying Up?
The cormorant returned to the surface
with a juvenile salmon flashing against the grey waterscape.
Its simple then – in this light.
I farm because I’m not a good fisherman
Because at the end of a long struggle
I confess I am lousy with math.
Now, dogged and desprite
I have a lot – riding – on vegetables.
I farm because in an age of too much, too soon, too fast
with an ethic of buy now. pay later
dirt, sunshine, fungus
Too much (dirt)
Too little (sun)
Too complex (fungus)
Beckons me – slow down, play, touch, smell… pay attention. Be present.
Right here. Breath deep – right now.
I farm because – it seems to me – it matters.
Otherwise I live the grand distraction
Of a career in which I know all the wrong things do.
That is it. It matters
I farm because it it is the only way I know
to be honest in confronting epic global change.
It is the best way I know how to alive and humble.
