Here there be dragons?

We can't speak for elsewhere, but where we are March is going out like a lamb. Clear, blue, sunny skies and temperatures in the low 50's℉. If it weren't for pandemics, stay-at-home mandates or guidance, and related matters this could be a very enjoyable Spring day. In fact, it is a very enjoyable Spring day. I've never been very good a compartmentalizing the various aspects of my life and how I feel about it all. One day I'm like Eeyore; the next Tigger; the next Piglet; on a good day I make it to Winnie-the-Pooh territory; but never, ever have I grown up enough to be a Christopher Robin; nor do I want to if grownups are the ones who have made our world the way it is.

This being the end of March, we could well be in the midst of Winnie-the-Pooh and  the Blustery Day, but we're not. We're all the way through March and, for the second year in a row, we've not flown our dragon kite during this month. Kite flying is something one should be able to do while maintaining proper physical-social distance. We had previously made tentative plans with the Daughter Person to fly the dragon kite with her. But then CORVID-19 and stay-at-homes and self-isolations and all that erupted. If not being able to go fly a kite becomes our most severe coronavirus disruption, I'll take it.

Meanwhile, I continue to ponder what our next new normal may look like, and then the one after that, and the one.... Fortunately, there are lots of people and organizations working to bring enhanced levels of sanity to our worlds, although why there aren't more folks lined up behind them is a good question.

Did you know that Minnesota has a Sustainable Farming Association? That organization is one of several in Minnesota that are members of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. Since farming, and our food systems, are among the systems I believe need a complete remake, I'm heartened to have discovered (uncovered?) the existence of these organizations. Perhaps we'll eventually be able to tame, or slay, the huge, corporate dragons that continue to undermine the sustainability of real food farmers and rural communities.

The Farm

By Joyce Sutphen

My father’s farm is an apple blossomer.

He keeps his hills in dandelion carpet

and weaves a lane of lilacs between the rose

and the jack-in-the-pulpits.

His sleek cows ripple in the pastures.

The dog and purple iris

keep watch at the garden’s end.

His farm is rolling thunder,

a lightning bolt on the horizon.

His crops suck rain from the sky

and swallow the smoldering sun.

His fields are oceans of heat,

where waves of gold

beat the burning shore.

A red fox

pauses under the birch trees,

a shadow is in the river’s bend.

When the hawk circles the land,

my father’s grainfields whirl beneath it.

Owls gather together to sing in his woods,

and the deer run his golden meadow.

My father’s farm is an icicle,

a hillside of white powder.

He parts the snowy sea,

and smooths away the valleys.

He cultivates his rows of starlight

and drags the crescent moon

through dark unfurrowed fields.

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