Heart and Soil

something about grieving, and farms, and family

‣ Check it Out: Liz Charlotte Grant conversation this Friday

‣ Heart and Soil Prose

‣ Some Special Artwork

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‣ Check it Out: Join me and

Tori E. Owens

for a conversation with

Liz Charlotte Grant

this Friday at 1PM Central. Here’s the link. And here’s Liz’s book. (And here’s last week’s conversation with

Jon Paul Sydnor

)

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‣ Heart and Soil Prose

sunset over the farm on my fugi x100

The following little poem is something I wrote after my mother-in-love sold her farm, the geography of which marked so much of her and her family’s life over a forty-year timespan. Other things were also marked on the farm, as it served to be where we last hugged our daughter and, a few hours later, first received the news of life without her. God, what hoping and weeping (sowing and reaping) took place on the farm.

I don’t pretend to be a poet; wait, no, maybe I do pretend, for how else could one begin to consider what someone, let’s say, like my wife, experienced at that one geographical location? Those hills, rivers, and cornfields will forever be the setting where she gained so much as a girl and lost so much as a mom. So, yes, I think I will pretend to be a poet.

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Heart and Soil

We used to run this land
As fast as the sun sets
In the last hour of daylight
When the rush of orange
Takes your breath away

With pattering bare feet
We left our mark down in the dirt
Our hair flying against the backdrop
Of barns and laughter
Of fox and tractor

Our youth ran right up and into it’s edges
As far as we could go
Its rivers, like old scars held us back
As we wept and heaved
Screaming into the dark beyond

Sinking
Into it’s hills, it’s trees
Of browns and greens
We floated down darkly
With stars
Those distant fireflies
Dancing light all above us

Ah … this land, this earth
These memories, this dirt
This beauty, this hurt

Yes, we ran this land
But more was there than met the eye
For all the while we moved
And breathed it’s bouquet
It was breathing us

What we left in it
Was not greater than what it left in us
Its footprints forever in our soil

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‣ Some Special Artwork

Also, since I’m in the mood, or on a roll, or at a loss, I’m including an image of the artwork our 20-year-old worked on, at the farm, the day before she died. I think it’s likely she was approximating something she found on Pinterest; still, is there anything more a parent could ask than having a kid who offered some of her last hours to such artwork? Something for your living room to rally around, if not the remainder of your life? No, to answer my own question, I suppose not … I suppose not …

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And hey, if you’re into exploring grief against the backdrop of theopoetics you might like indigo: the color of grief.

Brian McLaren

said it’s “simultaneously heart-breaking, heart-opening, and heart-expanding.”

Glenn Siepert

said it’s “absolutely stunning.”

Paul Young

said, “I wept my way through indigo and with every page, I knew … I love, love, love this book.” And my friend,

Jim Palmer

, has been kind enough to mention it multiple times, including in his most recent post. I could mention more friends and their comments, but good grief, that’s enough endorsing for one post. 🙂

FYI, some recent friends I’ve connected with on Substack (or elsewhere) around the subject matter of grief include

Brian D Smith

,

Dina Bell-Laroche

,

Wisdom of Grief

, and

Jessica Fein

.