I am a dirt farmer
Who dreams of poetry.
Is that so strange? Is anything?
I have bent myself thankfully
Over the heat of cowchips.
When the Lespedeza flowers
I breathe its blooms
The calf I winch to birth
Grows legs like oaks to graze on,
And stuck hogs bleed for breakfasts.
This morning at milking
I kiss the cow’s warm flank
And she kicked the milk to froth beneath my knees.
I forgave her,
Then cried with the cats.
Now the manure is in bloom,
Thistles defend the driveway,
And corncobs gird the mud beneath my boots.
Plotting harvests,
I roam my acreage like a sweet spy.

William Kloefkorn was born in Kansas but lived in Nebraska and was the first Nebraska State Poet. This is from his first poetry collection, Alvin Turner as Farmer, and is about a Kansas farmer, but the geography of place doesn’t matter as much as the geography of land. I’ve been reading a few of these poems today, and whilst they seem to concern themselves with the daily routines and simplicity of farming, they are clearly also dealing with the complexities of living as seen through the deceit [conceit] of that farming frame. I will post another at a later date.