Category Archives: farming

February 2, 2021 · 4:04 pm

The Drought – Haibun by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Frank is hosting Haibun with an invitation to write about the eagle.

dVerse Poets – Haibun – Eagle

Photo: https://publications.australian.museum/ showing a wedge tailed eagle.

“Fierce eagles do not produce timorous doves.” Horace

The Drought

45c and the road, straighter than straight, rolling beyond what the rusted sign advised. Blues, liquid, twelve bar, driving through this dry land. Paddocks hollow and stricken, rain forsaken for so long now, nothing holds in this dust. Crows picking the eyes out of everything that ceases to move, that cadaver buffet for pall bearers.

The gates blur in fifth, the barbed wire whispers strained songs of lament and I weep as I pass the delusion of hope trying to bale non-existent hay, the sadness of twenty bales to a hundred acres. And I weep for this place where endings complete and there are no obvious beginnings.

I slow as I see the spectre eyeing emaciated sheep. The angel of death eyes me and I nod in deference, better an ending than tortured horizons. I wave my blessing, thankful that the feathered euthanasia will ease the shepherds pain. In this moment the eagle is surgeon, priest and mourner, holding a ritual, taking death for life.


Life now surrendered
throat offered for sacrifice
feathered friend loves life

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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August 26, 2020 · 3:18 pm

The Very Fruit – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Rosemarie at dVerse has invited us to write a poem using the word wheat, or any of its derivatives. dVerse Poets – Poetics – Wheat

Photo: wa.gov.au Combine harvester working a wheat paddock in Western Australia.

“In the very end of harvest, scarcity and want shall shun you; Cere’s blessing so is on you.” Ceres – ‘The Tempest’ Act 1V Scene 1 – William Shakespeare

The Very Fruit

Mungo hummed a tune as he circled
the paddock in steely revolutions,
a sacrifice to the gods as the
whirling blades cut swathe after
swathe of golden denison, 
the very fruit of Ceres hips,
sown broad in ripe April's arms
detined to crust his lips
with loaf and brew along
that old Friday fertility rite,
and Mungo hummed a tune.

©Paul Vincent Cannon


Notes: 
Denison is a wheat strain used in parts of W.A.
Ceres is the Roman goddess of the growth of food plants.

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June 21, 2020 · 3:28 pm

Beware, The Magpies Are Singing – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Corvid – 2020 Weekly Challenge 13 (Final)

Photo: http://www.birdwallpapers.com

“There are many rhymes about magpies, but none of them is very reliable because they are not the ones that the magpies know themselves.” Terry Pratchett

Beware, The Magpies Are Singing

Like the sound of a drunken black cockatoo,
the windmill squeaks its grinding rotation,
tail flapping in the breeze
which cools the sweated skin,
it's early, but it's hotter than hell,
a sinister augury of the day's endurance
that only cold beer will quell at its end,
right now the magpies are singing their song,
carolling their advent of spring's enterprise
and the need to stay out of their range,
for they've hatched a plot for a geography
they intend to defend.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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February 2, 2020 · 2:53 pm

Every Time – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

RDP Sunday – Masterpiece

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Photo: from hyperactivz.com and the story “Forty Years Ago This Man Planted A
Tree That Created Amazing Opportunities For His Island” by Lauren Fazackarly –  The Story of Jadav Payeng who began planting trees at sixteen and is still going.

Please note: this is only one story, there are several stories from all over the world of people doing similar feats to greater or lesser extent.

 

“Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in.”  Greek Proverb

Every Time

He settled in the dust of his soul,
the sun beating down and
mocking his every effort
drawing his moisture to his brow,
and yet every day he rose and
without fail, made his way
to his field of dreams
that barren canvas of life’s struggles,
of course, without knowing,
passers-by smiled their condescension,
to them he was an eccentric farmer,
while in his own mind he was an
investment banker, and adventurer, a rebel,
and every time he planted a tree he knew
he was painting a masterpiece
whose abstract nature only he could explain.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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December 10, 2019 · 2:31 am

Advent Herald – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Prosery – Jim Harrison

Linda at dVerse has invited us to take a line from the work of Jim Harrison – “A cow is screaming across the arroyo.” taken from his poem ‘Cow.’

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Photo: Pixabay.com

 

“Moo may represent and idea, but only the cow knows.”  Mason Cooley

 

Advent Herald

A cow is screaming across the arroyo as the weaners are drawn aside. The cattle-hands working the herd, the weaners easily pushed across the arroyo to the feeders like children to a lolly counter. I listened to her screaming, a gut-grief heartfelt, and though I cannot speak it, a warning was implied. Burgers or breeders, the children are consumed. And as I walked reflecting, I wondered about all the herding of life, this arroyo is not the Rubicon, but a die was no less cast.

I came to the creek-line with an angel or devil, I’m not sure, but I left the gate open and the screaming cow dove through. She spoke so clearly as we passed, “Those who lie or sup from the manger will be crucified one day.” Startled, I ran through, I’ve been wandering un-herded ever since, across that arroyo.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

 

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October 27, 2019 · 2:52 pm

The Old Farm Gate – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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Photo: Farm gate – found on Pinterest

“Men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men.”  Henry David Thoreau

The old Farm Gate

I leaned on the old gate as I was wont to do,
and it seemed a good thing,
the gate offered no objection
rather, a welcome to reflect as I
leaned and looked out at all that was before me,
in the dry of the day the rust
like barnacles clung to the wizened steel,
but some flaked and powdered
and I felt its roughness
a reminder of the many winters it has endured
since it was hung in less complicated times
when boundaries were respected and a
gate was merely a choice of
coming or going, to be in or out,
this gate might not make another hundred
but for now it has more stories to tell.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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August 24, 2019 · 1:56 pm

The Cuckoo-flower – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

5 Lines – Waiting

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Photo: provided by  Patricia’s Place

 

“The statesman shears the sheep, the politician skins them.”  Austin O’Malley

 

The Cuckoo-flower

She was more verbivore than herbivore
a cuckoo-flower who habited a simple meliorism
that the pasture was always better down the road
paradise in four-leafed clover she’s heard,
just awaiting the jumbuck special, ticket cloven.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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August 1, 2019 · 1:56 pm

Mick – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Dinkum – RDP – Thursday

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Photo: http://www.cjd.com.au

“He was a giver of life an alchemist that worked in dirt, seed, and manure.”

Tracy Winegar ‘Good Ground’

 

 

Mick

Mick kicked the dust with his boots
as a light breeze eddied through,
blue was panting at his side
it had been a long day in the paddock and
his thoughts turned again to home,
another hour and he’d be there
the house all go with kids and dinner,
Deb would have most of it sorted
she was a great sheila,
hard working
a dab hand on the farm,
the windmill groaned a rusty groan
finishing his reverie for now,
time was grinding on,
the light was fading,
night’s chill descending,
contented, he climbed into the ute
and with blue took the firebreak
home to his fair dinkum love.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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March 7, 2019 · 1:50 pm

Bovine Effluent – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Bovine – Word of the Day

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Photo: algoafm.co.za

 

Bovine Effluent

We were drafting cows one afternoon
when Graham
treading in a pat
exclaimed, “Shit!”
And laconically I agreed
noting his tautological tendencies
without so much as a smile.
I said “We’re covered in it mate.”
“What?” He was so utterly confused.
“Well, between the stock agents,
the tax office and the pollies,
We’re up to our necks in bovine effluent.”

©Paul Vincent Cannon

 

Paul, pvcan.com

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February 24, 2019 · 2:39 pm

Memories – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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Photo: agrilife.org

Memories

I’m not sure why I stopped
in the sharp heat of the day
particularly here,
I walked the firebreak for a while
and though I didn’t stir the soil so much,
my shoes were coated in a pale dust
as if the old days wanted to come with me,
those accretions of experience
which stick to the back of the mind
and come in dust.
Hours later,
when I’d arrived home, I
determined that I would not
clean my shoes.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcan.com

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