We asked readers to submit poems based on farm and rural life.
Farm life in VERSE
We learned about up-wind and down-wind,
A sparrow sat on the garden post
Families that work together to get what needs to be done
I married a farmer on July 27, 2003,
A rolling hill farm in southwest Iowa
We culled a cow today and it
Oh, how blessed I am,
T'was the night after Christmas
If Jesus were born in this modern day, I can see him in my old barn, in the manger of hay.
A farmer has a hard life.
I looked out my kitchen window
The farmers’ life of yesteryears
Author’s note: “I wrote this poem after our family farm was destroyed by a tornado in August of 1994.”
Submitted by her daughter, Glenda Fitzgerald
Out in the driveway by the gates sets my ole truck
There’s a dusty old road that runs through the farm,
A farmer was born in 1925,
Note: “This was written by my granddaughter, Donna Drebes, while she was in high school. She was our first grandchild, so Donna and her grandp…
A family farm is not yours to keep; it’s lent from generations past,
I see sunsets on the bluff
A Farmer stands Tall.
My grandma lived just down the road,
God called the dry ground ‘Land’
Whose fields these are I surely know;
She awakens in the light of spring after winter’s rest.
The feel of the wind is like the feel of getting set free
When I walk with my dog in the morning
That first spring,
On my walk up the hill today,
Sunlight slipping through the old barn window
It wasn’t an accident I suppose
I am from a land
On a cold and windy March day,
He plows the land
There’s a place saved in heaven for farmers,
pointy witches noses,
Uncle Bobby was busy fixing a tractor, we needed to get the rice planted before the rains came, so I rode with Dad to Brushy Lake.
As we reminisce about days gone by
Levelcrest Rebecca, 1969-1981
The hayfield is white in moonlight
He comes to see her every day
Note: Submitted by his son, Joel Wellendorf.
The evening air is thick and stifling,
All the folks who live in town
He made us trails and sawdust piles
To be like the man that was built like the tree.
Here’s to “Butch” and Stella his bride;
We bury only the empty husk that held,
My lady, my cow
On a snowy stage, on a moonlit night,
Author’s note: “The reason I wrote this poem was to perk up my husband who was getting tired through a difficult calving season. I attached it…
When I walk along the Crick
I grew up on a farm three miles from town;
His work is never done, from sun up to sun down
...can be a moody brute!
MAX on frozen water
Poor old barn
The clamor of disks on the plow like cymbals slicing through the dirt cover up harvest waste making their own music; heavy metal.
The snowflake scrunched
In the heart of the farmer are thoughts of the soil,
When I first met my husband he was quite the city guy.
I thought that I would never see
There sets a little house upon a hill,
They come out of hiding,
I love to work with my husband. It’s lovely here on the farm!
The legal papers describe it as real estate containing 175.76 tillable acres, more or less, but my family farm is so very much more…
Author’s note: I grew up in Illinois. Sadly, I do live out west. I miss the rich, Midwestern soil (and work ethic).
McCormick-Deerings and Farmalls,
Boys, it’s almost daylight!
I hear these stories from out of the west,
Mowing clover, alfalfa and timothy
