Portrait of a Kansas farmwife
Calico housewife, mother hen
pushes sweaty bangs away
with a fleshy hand. Those
heavy hips in
sensible shoes
rock children, bear burdens
shake cotton sheets to the wind.
She is a sturdy tower, Sunday School teacher
potluck supper staple,
this saint of cornfields and the practical.
Rarely complains.
But her soul is that of a Himalayan nomad,
the tent of her heart hung with multicolored
woven tapestries, exotic and unrestrained.
She leads her flock of
unanswered questions
on narrow paths above the tree line,
waits for God in the stillness of the tundra,
the knife edges of these heights
inducing prayers like vertigo.
Plainswoman, nomad, kitchen mystic,
beloved child of a mountainous god.
She carries her contradictions like icons,
kneads bread dough,
wrestles with the Divine.
Calico housewife, mother hen
pushes sweaty bangs away
with a fleshy hand. Those
heavy hips in
sensible shoes
rock children, bear burdens
shake cotton sheets to the wind.
She is a sturdy tower, Sunday School teacher
potluck supper staple,
this saint of cornfields and the practical.
Rarely complains.
But her soul is that of a Himalayan nomad,
the tent of her heart hung with multicolored
woven tapestries, exotic and unrestrained.
She leads her flock of
unanswered questions
on narrow paths above the tree line,
waits for God in the stillness of the tundra,
the knife edges of these heights
inducing prayers like vertigo.
Plainswoman, nomad, kitchen mystic,
beloved child of a mountainous god.
She carries her contradictions like icons,
kneads bread dough,
wrestles with the Divine.