WEBVTT

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This is called
"Farmers," again, sort

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of utilizing that landscape
that I grew up around in.

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I should mention it
was a half-ass farm.

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It was sort of a
broke down farm.

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"Farmers."

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Force feeding swans--
let me tell you--

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was hard.

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And up every morning 4:30
counting the lambs out

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to pasture, each one tapped
on the forehead with a stick

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to be sure it's there.

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Uncle Reaper half the
time so drunk he'd

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pull his milkstool
under the horse--

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more work explaining
the difference.

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Gramma and Cousin
Shroud putting up

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8,000 jars of beets, Auntie
Bones wrapping her wooden spoon

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against my ear--

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"More bushels, bumbler!"

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I tell you--

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I understand how come the
dancing bear tore off his skirt

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and headed back
to the Yukon, how

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come all of a sudden
jewels in avalanche

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down the spine of my sleep.

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But still, still when it
rains, I remember all of us--

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farmers, simple
sweatmongers of the dirt

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whose turnips depend on it.

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I remember how we
called it down,

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how down we desired it to fall--

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the rain.

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I think sometimes
you don't really

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know what a poem is about
until you're done with it.

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Now, of course, we
didn't really have

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swans on that farm or bears
or anything like that.

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But I think what
this poem was about

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was I think it was a reaction
to a lot of people say

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that my generation
had this idiotic idea,

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OK, let's go back to the farm
and grow our own bean sprouts

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and live off the
Earth and all that.

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And not knowing, of course, this
very naive notion, not knowing,

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of course, what a crummy,
pain-in-the-ass, chancy,

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incredibly difficult
job farming is.

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So it's sort of a
satire on that maybe.

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