Three Poems for Vernon Family Farm and Agrarian Trust
by Jessica Purdy
Jul, 2021
Chickens
I come to the farm in the morning. It’s April
and trees are just budding, turning into leaves
that will green all summer and then go
out like sunsets in autumn. I can walk freely
past the store and into the short grass pasture
the farmhand tells me are too small for grazing
yet. When the chicks get big enough they
can roam, eating and laying eggs,
serving as fresh food for people like me
who are sad but glad to see how clean
and healthy they seem. Their white puff
bodies kept warm in the cold,
cool in the heat. On the pristine dirt floor,
they eat, sleep, perch, preen. Pink skin, feathers
coming in, they sound like water falling
in open air. I can smell the heated breath
of their climate-controlled shelter. The grown
chickens gossip and huddle, notice me.
All around me wildlife waits for no one.
Reliant on themselves, mourning doves
coo in the old maples, sing their instincts to the air.
Cows at Vernon Family Farm
Cows chuff the hay so quietly
I can hear the mourning dove coo.
When I was a child I learned
To imitate their call, liked to think
I heard their call in response.
Next to the berm of compost,
piled wood, split trees. The work
of the farmer is evident. Mud
patterned with tractor tracks.
Dandelions spring up in the ruts.
I’m introduced to “Maeve” and “Maple.”
They are being raised for milk.
Two Jersey heifers. The softest black eyes
and lashes like feathered fans.
“Clover” and “Doc,” black and white
Wagyu holsteins. Dark brown “Dandelion”
will be for meat. Did the farmer’s children
name them? They trundle by, little girls
guided in their father’s hand. I imagine
myself as a child then, with little need of names,
whirling in my rubber boots, watching
my skirt rise in a circle around me—
my soles printed in the mud after rain.
Counting Sheep
Seven lambs, four sheep, and one llama.
The llama rubs her face on the hay.
The electric fence ticks. A reminder:
Don’t Touch. The lambs sleep, seem
to smile into the sun. One rests its white
hoof on the back of a black
one. The sheep burp and maa.
One of the lambs is sick.
Somewhere a little girl pockets
little plastic farm animals
from a church playroom. When
her mother finds her with them,
she makes her give them back.
She hadn’t known it was wrong
to take what didn’t belong to her,
only wanted to keep
the feel of the plastic pig’s smooth
side, the sheep’s rough white fur,
the horse’s brown flank, and play
with them a little longer.
Jessica Purdy holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. Her books STARLAND and Sleep in a Strange House were both released by Nixes Mate Books in 2017 and 2018. Visit Jessica at jessicapurdy.com
Agrarian Trust (agrariantrust.org) supports land access for next generation farmers for sustainable food production, collective ecological stewardship, complex land succession, with accounting, estate planning, retirement planning and legal and technical assistance.