Poem April 2023

Farmlife

If I were a farmer now

I would name my hoe Samson

to move the dirt near my cow

 

that moos the meadow for nose

discharges worthy of respect,

some lows with lots of excesses

 

pouring like rain flattery cannot know

so thin and bare when we wag our tails

and say Nature’s cruel enough to please

 

any milker named Grace

or Paul or Brown.

May pings of milk stream

 

into the bucket between knees.

The cow chews her cud

with contentment of a Christian without honor

 

or the noise from the garden my mother tends.

Discretion is the council of remembrance.

Sometimes a tower is by itself a watch.

 

If needs be, grant mercy,

then climb to the top,

a mile from the dirt.

—  Shelby Stephenson

Shelby Stephenson was North Carolina’s ninth poet laureate.