Today I’m sharing the following poem as it embodies all the joy and contentment I’ve always found in nature. When I lived out in the country on my little place fondly called Grandma’s Ranch, nothing made me happier than being outdoors playing farmer. I had my critters, Banjo, Lucy, and Marie; numerous cats throughout the years, and our dog, Poppy, and the land to tend best I could.
Farmers are stewards of the land, as so wonderfully told in The Art of Farming, a book I reviewed a few weeks ago. I’ve never met a farmer or rancher who didn’t feel a great affinity with the very dirt that sustained their crops year to year. Before corporate farming, men and women were out in the fields working from sunup to sundown. They knew the best ways to cultivate the crops, protect the nutrients in the soil by rotating crops, and controlling weeds and insects with methods that didn’t involve harsh chemicals. Despite the challenges of sustaining a farm, they saw the beauty in the land and their work.
Here’s the poem:
William Henry Davies (1871-1940) was a Welsh poet who started out as a rounder but ended up a respected poet. Raised by grandparents after his father died and his mother remarried, William was inclined toward a life of adventure; he traveled by boat to North America repeatedly before losing a leg in attempting to jump a train. He eventually returned to England, wrote a book about his wandering years, paid and starved his way into becoming a published poet and, eventually, gained equal standing with such contemporaries as Yeats and Ezra Pound.I found the piece at Your Daily Poems.com where there are links to many poems that lift one’s spirits.
Since the U.S. election earlier this month, I’ve needed my time in nature to ease the stress of my disappointment and anger over the outcome, and as each new staff position in the tRump administration is announced, I feel the need to go outside more and more. There’s nothing to be done, at least by me, to change what the next four years will be like. This old lady is tired. Really tired. I’ve told family and friends that I just can’t do any more.
For years and years I’ve spoken out in person, and in words in newspapers and then online in my blogs, for racial and gender equality and justice. In the early 60s I was active in Civil Rights efforts after a sociology professor enlightened this young white woman who hadn’t a clue about the plight of Black people in the country. Growing up I didn’t have a television to see news reports, and we lived in a poor area near Detroit where focus was on sustaining ourselves and not on current affairs. So college was quite an eye-opening experience. In a good way for me, as I immediately wanted to “slay the windmills” and do my part to help the people who experienced so much injustice and bigotry.
My professor met with a group of student after hours in a bar not far from school and outlined things we could do – writing letters, marching, and protesting. Most of us weren’t able to go south and join the brave people who did so much there, but we protested areas where there was redlining happening in real estate. We wrote letters to city and state agencies that oversaw real estate practices, demanding that this practice should be stopped. And once a group of us went to help a Black family clean up the mess after neighbors trashed the yard with garbage and signs with wordage to ugly to repeat.
From then on I continued to be an activist, even in small ways, but never shied away from trying to point out some truths in what reality is like for too many people. I’m an idealist at heart and cling to a belief that if a person can be enlightened, like I was in college, then change can occur.
Sadly, this idealist has had her bubble burst big time.
A truth for today and the next four years, is that the majority of American people have swallowed the lies tRump has told them since 2016 – that he really cares about you, the average Joe. He’s for the working people. He’s going to make America great again.
Truth: America has always been great. She hasn’t always acted great, but her place in the world as a leading economy and strength can’t be disputed. What happened on Jan 6, 2021 almost brought us down, but it didn’t, and some men had the courage to stand strong against the threat.
Truth: The new administration plans to cut taxes for billionaires and large corporations even more. No tax cut planned for the middle or lower class. Proposed tariffs will raise prices on groceries and basic household goods, not lower them. The deficit will grow. And to control that, basic things like Medicare, CHIPS, and other sources of income and help for people who need it the most, will be cut or eliminated. How many average Joes can survive without Medicare? Veterans’ assistance? Food stamps?
Truth: People with money and power and no government experience are now going to be in charge of agencies that control healthcare, environmental issues, and the judicial system. That scares the living you-know-what out of me. The cabinet will be comprised of “yes” people who’s main, or only, qualification is loyalty to tRump.
Truth: Some of the rhetoric floating around the news from interviews with people nominated for some of these posts, indicates that the men will be in charge of everything, including the women in their lives. Women are not property. Women don’t “belong” to a man. If a man wants to be in charge of something, let him go for a drive and push his car to the limit.
Okay. Whew! I think I need to go for another walk.
Thanks for reading this far. I really appreciate it. Hope your week starts off on a good footing.
Maryann, I love this. You are such a wonderful person and writer. I feel exactly the same way. It saddens me but we will have to get through it somehow.
Thanks for the affirmation, Stacey. I’m blushing at the high praise.
Taking a page from AA, “one day at a time.”
Hope things are going well for you.