Life is a Garden Party

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Patchwork

Patchwork

Gleaming fields of ripening grain
nurtured by the sun and rain
swaying in the breeze -
oats, corn, soybeans, peas,
wheat, barley, silage, clover,
timothy or alfalfa.

Yellows, greens, and browns.
Patchwork on the ground.
Fit together to form a whole
by several hardworking souls.
Squared corners or curved
filling in the grooves.

Golden oats shimmering.
In the breeze sashaying.
Music is made
then comes the blade
to shock into piles
mile after mile.

In the plot over there leaps
tasseled corn ready to reap.
Planted in straight rows.
Eight feet high it grows.
When the frost comes down
the stalks will turn to bronze.

Parcels of soybeans and peas
where bees buzz and stop to tease
pollinating
the blossoms
waiting to mature and age
in fields of green foliage.

Flaxen heads of wheat
soaking in the heat.
Kernels gleaned in the sun one day will make flour
after combining hour after hour.
Up, down, and around
from sun up to sun down.

Down the road a stretch
more grains for market.
Glistening with dew
under skies of blue
or tawny-brown becomes
under the setting sun.

As far as the eye can see
are fields of green barley.
Squared off into acres the fields
will produce a bumper yield.
Bordered by a black ribbon road
leading to market where sold.

Miles and miles of acres
waiting to be sun-cured
after seeds were planted
and the good Lord watered
form patchwork pieces gathered together
joined by family, friends, and neighbors.

Several acres of clover, timothy,
alfalfa ready for baling early
under the noonday sun
right up until sundown.
This parcel owned by generations
of farmers making a living.

There's a tract of pumpkins
turning orange before picking
next to a cornfield where a maze
will soon confuse and amaze.
You might even buy maize
with kernels of browns and maize.

Patches sewn together by hedges or creeks
or babbling brooks which quietly speak.
Patchwork pieces of greens and golds
or brown when the earth is unfurled -
there are squares and rectangles,
irregular triangles.

Patchwork earth neatly arrayed.
Patchwork lives from disarray.
Patchwork overalls from tears.
Patchwork everyone wears.
Patchwork puts back together
what has come untethered.

Rather lives or acres
patchwork holds a cure.
Acres planted with grains
comes to life again.
Lives patch-worked back together
grow healthier and stronger.

Patchwork neatly forms
a beautiful new form
for pieces are stitched making something new
out of rips and tears and furrows, who knew?
Patchwork makes whole
what used to be holes.
* * * * *

The pieces of your life form a whole
where joys and sorrows daily flow.
In the end someone beautiful is formed
like unmatched patchwork pieces being sewn.
All together more pleasing than plain -
the patchwork of our lives made right again.



To order Life Is a Garden Party, Vol II
go to WestBow Press, Amazon or B&N.

To order Life Is a Garden Party, Vol I
go to Amazon or B&N.


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