Three Poems for Normanton Farms and Agrarian Trust
by Mary Brancaccio
Jun, 2021
Heaven’s Breath
Here, human time surrenders to another keeper
of records: a greater clock measures
by tree rings and mutations, by fossil record
and ancient artifacts of Pennacook people
who farmed this land for thousands of years
before the French and English came.
Above the Merrimack, mist ghosts the waters
banks rising to rich pastures, leaves
silver-beaded as rain blesses a thirsty earth.
Morning showers invite a bird feast:
robins, longspurs, crows and bluebirds
flit through the meadow, hunting worms
and beetles among its grasses. Its sheaves
are thick and glossy, seed heads fat
and firm. Among blades of winter rye,
buttercups, red clover and bluets.
Further on, a wild sprinkling of
yellow birdsfoot and purple lupine.
Below the hill, a herd of cattle
bellows melodies of birth and nurture.
Four cows with new calves keep
their distance as I approach the fence.
One heifer gambols across the pasture
kicking her heels in a show of agility
before curiosity gets the better of her
and she circles back to greet me,
nostrils flaring to catch my scent.
Two redwings light on fence posts.
Trilling, they take to the air in wide arcs
skimming trees beneath purple-grey clouds.
Hens nestle wing to wing on grass in open-air
coops. Cheeping softly, they seem contented
by their flock's warmth on a cool morning
as if the business of the day were rest
and conversation, as they wait out the rain.
Along the pasture’s edge, a creek
courses over granite, strumming
notes of its own design. Fiddleheads
open as lush fronds. Along the mossy banks
families of pines: mother trees sheltering
nurslings, their branches greening with growth.
I wait and listen as ancient rhymes flicker
from root to root. This is a healing land.
Its wisdom runs deep.
Self-Portrait as a Crosby Fledgling
An old woman lifts me from among hundreds
and I am alarmed, flapping and cackling
though she holds me fast, tucking
my featherless wings against her chest until I quiet.
Once, I used my egg-tooth to break free
of what confined me. To birth oneself
is arduous work. It started with an urge
to crack my shell, to sip the air outside.
Soon I learned I was not alone. Hundreds
if not thousands of other chicks
had done this work as well. A generation
of featherless offspring, we looked
strange to one another, our wings bony
and bare. The world was cold and threatening
until we learned to band together, a flock
of flightless creatures, pitifully gangly.
But time grew us quills and downy feathers
that gave our wings some use: small flights
that led to perches, a place of comfort
and safety. Between my beak and claws
I can defend myself most days against
the hawk and skunk, mad killers
of my kind. The meaning of life eludes me:
so many of my days are spent chasing
food and shelter, water and food.
And warmth and company. It’s not
what I would call a rarified existence.
I live in an eat-or-be-eaten world.
The ones who eat have two eyes
front and center. The prey see
side to side, so as to spot what’s coming.
I turn one eye toward the woman.
Her two eyes gaze at me. She looks
like an eater, but she is cooing
as if somewhere inside her lives
a feathered soul. Our eyes lock
I can feel the pulse in her fingertips
against my body -- my heartbeat
is faster than hers, my lungs fill
and empty to a quicker pace
but for this moment, we see
eye-to-eye. Then she lets me go
and I fly into the circle of my flock.
It’s hella confusing getting singled out.
Imagine a Fence
“[T]he land no longer nursed the river in its bosom, but they conversed as equals…”
Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
A wild call lures me to this fertile land
hands me a shovel and urges me to dig, no
not to dig, to learn to use a meadow longer
than one season, the way the earth has nursed
all life with patience. Imagine a fence as a river
or better, a canoe, drifting through hills, down valleys in
measured steps, so that the cattle graze its
bounty, and in return enrich this loamy bosom
that suckles so many living things, but
with wise moderation. Concealed in cow piles, they
seed new grass, as if the spring and fall conversed
then weighed the balance of reap and sow, as
on a purser’s scale and found them equals.
Mary Brancaccio is a poet and a teacher. Her poetry has been published in Edison Literary Review, Minerva Rising, Naugatuck River Review, Adanna, Chest and other journals. She has been included in two international anthologies. Her chapbook, Mistress of Buttons & Keys was a finalist in Minerva Rising’s “Dare to Be” poetry chapbook contest. She recently completed her first book-length collection of poetry, Fierce Geometry. Her poem, “A Door Ajar,” has been selected for the 2021 Moving Words poetry-animation collaborative project with ARTS By The People.
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.