They say you can take the boy off the farm
But you can’t take the farm out of the boy.
To be back on the farm I’d give my right arm,
How I miss the scent of the rich soil.
To look back at the ground turning over
In four straight dark, moist furrows
Turning under last years stubble
So tomorrow’s harvest grows.
I long for the diesel smoke blowing black,
A perfume sweet and strange,
Seagulls clamor and screech in my wake
Where the hungry scavengers range.
Born with the life blood of soil in my veins
Passed on from my fathers who went before.
The farm was once. mine, I held the reins.
I gave it my heart —then some more.
I had hoped to raise my children
In the way that I had grown,
Knowing how to work the land
And reap what they had sown.
But for whatever reason
Known only to the Father
It was only meant for a season
And went no further.
He had other work for me to perform
Trading the tractor seat for an office chair.
He showed me skills I never knew I had
Though my heart was still elsewhere.
Now the decades quickly flown
I’m still that same farm lad
Longing for the life I had known
Yet grateful for what I once had.
I’ll be laid to rest in a time not far distant
Not far from the land I once farmed.
Then when I am called forth in an instant
Maybe there will be some land for me to tend. |
