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Hi Mary,
What a fun idea! Thank you for the invitation.
I would like to share a poem that I wrote while reflecting on my childhood.
Small Boy and Farm Life
When you were young on
the farm - remember that?
The world was big
time soooo slow
Dusty roads and cotton
Chickens under the steps
Great big ugly blue toads
and little cute green frogs
Cows itching on the fence
Horse flicking flies off their friends
A long and two shorts - who's that?
"Line's busy" (who's listening)
creaking lines and flapping sheets
a cloud of dust - another truck
Bare feet, hot days and cold cowpies
"Yuk!" you say - you haven't lived!
Root beer hanging in the well
Dirt, old leaves and sweat
Spooooky swamps, beaver grass
water and twisted mean willows
Big blue sky
Big mountains
Secret trails
Tied grass huts and mom
Hanging out on the stoop
fresh buttermilk - amazing
Blueberry patches, burnt pine trees
peeling birches, rattling poplar leaves
and bears...
and scary noises on dark trails
Cut June hay and great big horses
Buckrakes and dad and a steel throne
a stick, a line, a hook
a great brown river
Eating wild leeks picked like grass
and sweet clear ice cold springs
Tree frogs singing and crickets
and house creaking to sleep
Moonlight peaking around the blinds
Barking dog
Time was soooo slow
The world so big
© 2006 Dave Cottrell
I grew up on a farm in northern BC. These verses are from my earliest memories when everything was so big, so wonderful, and everything seemed to go on forever. Back then we had work horses. This changed soon after when we were able to buy first an old Studebacher truck and then a tractor. When I was really small I rode on old Prince, one of the two horses, and when I was a little older, I rode on the buckrake to put the rake down after Dad tripped it with a piece of galvanized telephone wire he had running to the window of the truck. Mom used to make grass huts for me to hide in by tying together the long grass in the field behind our house.
God bless,
Dave
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