April
Can you smell the earth?
Or sense the impatience of the field?
The earth is alive again; it yearns to be turned,
to feel the warm sun.
Last year’s chaff shall soon be scattered,
replaced by the new bed for seed.
April has come; spring renews.
Cold and rainy, then breezes that blow young blooms away.
The air is filled with blossoms flitting on the breeze.
Yet, there is mud. A midwestern spring constant.
Cow’s now leave their indelible track; their feet mar the soft flesh
of new pasture grass, just green.
Four little ponds quickly fill where each hoof trod;
muddy water seeps into the bogs, the shallow valleys;
it winds between the rocks like a thick, brown cord.
The land is damp, yet summer will make it dry.
God’s perfect order, all shown so messily in spring.
-Sarah Beth Aubrey
March Poem:
Is that a hint of pale green in the pastures
or a mild, warm lilt to the breeze?
The sky seems brighter, the sun’s heat stronger,
morning beckons calm; afternoon storms threaten to brew.
March moves into the countryside.
The fields are rutted, groves cut with by-gone snows
chiseled out like canyons from flowing water.
The road and asphalt have heaved and cracked,
fence posts lean, wobbly in the loose earth
awaiting a farmer’s tap and tightening of high-tinsel wire.
Cows will soon be turned out to graze.
Rushing water, standing water, water in summer’s dry creekbeds,
water fills low places of the valley.
March brings water, the commodity that grows
the corn and beans an wheat commodities.
It nourishes the soil.
I like the twilight of March, it brings me hope.
For in February, I despair, but in March, I need only bide
my time just a bit more.
Spring is soon! The first tulip, lialac and robin.
As the sun fades, the cows slip back to the woods,
protected in the thick.
The day has been warm, but evening harshly, quickly,
turns cold.
By:
Sarah Beth Aubrey
The Dueling Machines of Progress
The smell of earth, the wet, damp earth
both turn and plunge, knife and rip.
One renews, one forever destroys.
In one field a seed is planted.
In another, a stone is laid.
In one, deer will feed,
the other, structures and concrete will
displace wild life.
Air is purified by the green corn.
Air is poisoned and clouded by SUV smoke.
People come to one endlessly;
traffic, autos, asphalt.
People come for a time to the other,
and don’t disturb again for a season.
In one field, harvest returns residue to the earth.
In the other, a field is no more.
Agriculture = field.
Strips malls = stone.
Concerned about food verses fuel?
Stop turning fields to stone
February Poem
If the edge of the landscape starts to light around 7 am,
the month of February must be growing wan.
Frost, not snow clings to the pasture grass,
a welcome, earlier, sun glistens in the East.
Its light is weak, the color of pale straw
or the long-faded weeds of the side ditch.
Fleeting moments in a wave of warmth,
they slipping away, to warm another day.
Like the sun, newborn calves grow stronger in the afternoons,
struggling to find their wobbly limbs,
mother’s throaty lows warn them close when they ramble.
Like me in my hat out for a walk,
they seek the sporatic warmth on hillsides,
faces toward the sun, eyes softly closed.
A moment later, cold wind drives them to the woods
and urges me back indoors.
I saw a few geese head North last evening.
Regrettably, they are a bit early.
Oh what a teaser month;
a little warmth, a little sun and
we think it is spring.
It is not;
it’s just February in Indiana.
January
There is a blue light at dawn that soon fades to grey
and stays there even
as the barn cat goes to hunt at dusk.
Sometimes, though, the steely sky silhouette’s
the grain-leg and the shed as if sketched by pencil lead
while a blush of pink peeks between clouds
at day’s end.
Two pairs of gloves, overalls, a hat and coat,
the gear required for morning chores.
Ice hangs on the fence line, in the trees
and glitters on a few brown blades of grass.
The cattleman worries over ears and tails,
keeping newborn calves warm and dry.
As the line of round bales slowly depletes,
days lengthen desperately slow.
When will colors return to the sky,
the fields, and even the stones of the creek?
Oh, I crave the bright-light of May,
or at least a balmy April afternoon!
By:
Sarah Beth Aubrey
December
Mud and muck in the barnlot or hard frozen earth under foot,
one day snow, another ice and sleet,
the land freezes hard, then warms, thaws and weeps.
Deer slip quietly beyond the treeline,
the asphalt cracks on the country road.
Clear, cobalt night skies a lit with pin-point stars,
the shortest day of the year.
Farmer’s equipment is shut in the sheds,
the stalks lay flattened by the wind.
Coffee shops and farm auctions offer the place to be,
lies about crop yields are told as if by fishermen.
In the quiet moments, though, we take time to realize,
the moment of our greatest gift.
Heaven reminds us of the divine birth,
for in December, it is Christmas we hold dear.
-Sarah Beth Aubrey
November
The land is dormant, quiet, resting.
It is muted in color, like cool graphite.
The sky is close, swollen. The field is bare.
It is November.
Empty rows lay sullen amid stalks broken and idle,
the sound is louder and harsher from the road,
no longer gently muffled by the tall crops.
It is November.
When I am first cold, first saddened by gloomy days
the fall wanes, winter looms.
We are inside by lit fires.
It is November.
A browned grass cows no longer graze, maybe nibble
hidden green bits.
They are slower, heavier in calf, less free to roam the woods.
The creek is stone cold, not yet frozen.
The cows stay close to the barn.
It is November.
-Sarah Beth Aubrey
where is your may poem.
ca