Wisconsin & A Word to the Wise

By Jennifer Frost

Wisconsin

Along a gravel road, there lay a farm,
A range of ground owned by my relatives.
Their kitchen overlooked the bottom field
Where hay grew silver-green around the barn
And horses stood in stalls by cows whose milk
Was sold. A diesel tractor pulled the plough

That tilled three hundred acres. Mud-caked plough
Blades turned a quarter acre for a farm
Wife’s garden. Aunt Jan’s best cow, Bossie’s, milk
Was clover sweet. Most of my relatives
Gave up their cows when feed to fill the barn
Cost more than they were worth. That’s when a field

Of beans brought pennies per bushel. A field,
With root rot slashed the acreage under plough.
Worse, worthless crops were molding in the barn.
It’s easy to lose money on a farm.
Some seasons, only loans from relatives
Could cover gaps not filled by selling milk.

In winter, driven snow as white as milk
Lay three feet deep where summer’s soybean field
Became a sled run. Merry relatives
Forestalled their fears for next year’s yield. The plough
Would last another season but th…