HARVESTS
By David Allen
I’ve seen many harvests.
During my teen years, I harvested
baskets of Little Neck clams;
wading in harbor waters at low tide
on Long Island’s North Shore,
collecting treats to be steamed
at beach barbecues.
I stumbled across potato fields
as a child, collecting spuds days before
the migrant farmers were transported
to harvest the Long Island fields,
years before the farms gave way
to shopping malls and subdivisions.
Later, there were Virginia Autumns
breathing in the strong smells of tobacco
curing in barns, hung on beams and exposed
to smoke from hardwood fires.
In the Far East, I saw rice
reaped in rice paddies by
foot-powered threshing machines,
as I drove back mountain roads
to my day job harvesting news.
These days I witness Hoosier harvests of corn,
dodging huge reaping machines
that menace my car as I drive
down narrow country roads.
It’s also where I reaped a bountiful
crop of love when I married
a Hoosier farm girl who taught me
how to spot soybean fields,
deem when corn is ripe to pick,
and that John Deere’s are the only real
Tractors for true Hoosiers.
She also helped me raise
a wondrous crop of kids.
But me, I’m not a farmer.
I’m just a poet who plants
words on pages to feed
a poem-hungry world.
Be sure to buy my books “The Story So Far” and “(more)” both available on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/David-Allen/e/B00DT6TM7Y?ref_=pe_1724030_132998060
Type Dancing 