Homestead
On the porch of my grandfather’s home,
the one built by his grandparents, a breeze
ruffles my hair, soars to deep-breathing trees and
undulates fields of cow-corn. Silver Queen,
planted for our use, beckons and soon
a cousin will plan a weekend of shucking and
cooking dozens of ears of corn, dozens and
dozens, and we will harvest the sweet, juicy
inner kernel, to freeze for a winter’s
feast. Tall, tall pines nod their heads
like a convocation of magicians, and we
may have to harvest those magnificent pines
to pay taxes, but for now we plunder deep,
rolling woods. A white birch, the last remnant
of Grandma-Old’s Wild Garden, tosses limbs
like a pouting ingénue and coyote give voice
from those deep woods we plunder while
ancient oak tremble as they take up the query,
—how long will we be on this land—
on dirt roads where great grandfather taught
mother to drive, taught her to shift, taught her
to stay in the middle of the road by aligning
hood ornament with the outer edge
of the road. And once she’d mastered all
that, drive all the roads again, in reverse.
Reverse along the ravine, reverse between
gate posts, in reverse ‘round the teardrop
where a dying Linden tree, planted by
Gran and delicate-tough as her, makes
me wonder about the future, about
replacement, renewal or a clean slate, and
I wonder, will our children, all working
in cities and towns, will one of them,
will some of them find another way to pay
those taxes and, in their old age, sit here,
on their ancestor’s porch, as they bear witness
to the fruits of bygone days, lives long past.
Sarah Ferris is published in RATTLE, Gyroscope Review, Better Than Starbucks, Autumn House Review, Dodging the Rain, Remington Review etc. Her chapbook, Snakes That Dance Like Daffodils, was published, April, 2019. Sarah has an MA in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica, and a BA in Cinema Studies from NYU. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.
REMINGTON REVIEW, summer 2021, page 7, Birdcage:
https://www.flipsnack.com/remingtonreview/remington-review-summer-2021.html
