The Farmer

I

There was once a farmer who with a smile endured
The test of memory and in time inspired
The stuff of legend: once a man became
The hero and the villain and the dream
Behind the smile became the memory
Of someone else.  There was once a farmer, and he
Worked hard to plow his thousand acre field
Each spring, preparing someone else’s food
With modern tools.  Allow this tale to start
With shares of metal dragging through dirt
And give the man a toil hardened grin
And a severed hand; then let this truth be told
Of every farmer whose every smile reveals
Defiance, grit, survival, victory,
But leave it there: a hundred stories end
Where one begins and all of history
Breathes the air of every once upon a time.

II

There was once a time when smiles disappeared
Throughout the county, turning to a hard
Reality: the cruelest of crimes
Came to their world and crushed the quiet dreams
Of an adolescent girl and of the whole
Community.  There was once a time when all
Work stopped to hear the echoes of a gun,
And it felt like everyone who heard the sound
Had pulled the trigger.  Oh dear audience
Expecting simple songs and sweet romance
Imagine you were there holding the gun
That fateful Friday night; and picture this,
A steadfast smile suddenly replaced
With emptiness, then guilt, then rage and blame,
And there you were, the gun still in your hand
Above your victim, for the rest of time
The final breath of a thirteen year old girl.

III

She was once a summer smile that never feared
Forever, thought forever was a word
That didn’t end: she smiled like it was summer
All the time, and by persistent dreams
And distant memories her ghost pretends
That nothing’s changed.  There was once, and there remains
Worked in the weave of our surviving souls
The strand of innocence of teenaged smiles
On summer nights.  Forgive us, farmer, for the blood
We can’t unspill, collect the tears we’ve shed
But let us smile that she may live again
To find forever; let this be her truth,
The ultimate discovery of youth:
Not liberty, not passion, not abandon
But innocence: accept this first and final
Plea, the strand of our salvation and
The breath that gives us immortality.