The Next Year People, Brand new poem Options

[vessq]

The Next Year People

The preacher picked us out of a stream
of National Western Stock Show enthusiasts
as we walked toward the entrance gates
on an icy sidewalk.
He approached spraying spittle,
pointed with a grimy hand,
and shouted loudly.

"Are you people of faith?
Do you believe"?
Uh-oh, I thought,
nobody, but nobody, shouts
at Grandma.

Later, over ice cream,
she said, “I've been thinking
about that sidewalk preacher
and what he was yelling.

I should have stopped
and told him of our belief.
It is pure faith to turn bulls in with cows
and believe that, come spring, there will be
Rambunctious white faced calves bucking
and bawling and butting heads.

And when we bury tiny seed
a quarter inch deep in dry soil,
we believe a miracle of lushness
will happen to feed us and our livestock.
Is that not faith?

When hard times come,
we hang on like leeches
and believe that next year
it won't hail out the wheat,
or rain on our fresh cut hay.

Next year, all the cows will have twins
and we will be able to pay the bank.
Oh yes, I should have told him,
We believe and have great faith
because we are next year people."

[Psyche]

Hi Vess, I've dropped in too late in the night to make a proper reading. But I really dig this poem and its content. Having been brought up on a farm, I relate very much indeed to "next year people", a truly profound phrase of your grandma's. Love it!

On our farm, the apple crop was forever being bashed by hailstorms about a couple of weeks before harvest time. I remember my Dad fingering the apples' hanging on the bending trees, trying to decide on picking day...and then, the hail..! He used to say some goddam awful words..

I'll try to get back asap, Vess, tho' I don't think there's much to nitpic at all.

Best, Syl***