What If We Were Made of Grass?

A farm poem on surrender and purpose.

Friends,

Since July 4’s around the corner, I’m sending this to you a week early. :)

It’s a meditation in this season of cutting and curing, accompanied by photos of our hay crop’s harvest. Though I wrote the poem years ago, the questions it poses have only sharpened, and how I respond to them matters more than ever.

Because mowers, heat, and balers have since returned, each in their season.

And surely will again.

Do I want to evade them? Do you?

***

PURPOSE

If blades of timothy and rye

Were made of flesh and bone,

And orchard grass and clover green

Were my own form, full grown,

.

Would I dare cheer the mower sharp

As round the field it came

To drop me groundward at my knees,

My willfulness to tame?

.

And would I welcome ted and rake

To cure me in the heat,

Before the baler packed me tight

And bound me, winter’s feed?

.

Or would I resist sacrifice,

Ignore the hungry, poor,

To wave in autumn’s windy chill,

Then shrink to soil’s store?

***

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“The LORD is like a father to his children,

tender and compassionate to those who fear him.

For he knows how weak we are;

he remembers we are only dust.

Our days on earth are like grass;

like wildflowers, we bloom and die.

The wind blows, and we are gone—

as though we had never been here.

But the love of the LORD remains forever

with those who fear him.”

~Psalm 103:13-17

***
(First published in the American Scientific Affiliation’s God and Nature Magazine )

***
AND *** Here’s a bonus post from my recent anniversary/fox research trip!

It’s the first installment of my upgraded subscription offering, which you can check out for 7 days at no charge at all. (I hope you love the fox photos.)

For those who’d like more posts and photos like these, this new option includes a second monthly letter/Substack post. It’ll go deeper into my personal writing life, as well as the backstories and research behind my fiction and poetry.

Also included: high resolution nature photography formatted for art TVs (like the Samsung Frame). And if you’d like a different shape for a frameable print, just drop me a note and I’ll send one your way!

Click here for a free look: She Might Even Have a Gun.

For specifics about the new subscription options, learn more here (or at the subscribe button below.)

From my BOOKERY . . .

A WINNER! Congratulations to SARAH TAYLOR! You won the Pacific Northwest Authors‘ EIGHT BOOK GIVEAWAY that I shared in my last letter. Happy summer reading, friend!

And now, July’s GIVEAWAY:

Since my WIP (work-in-progress) opens in SE Alaska, I’ve been revisiting fiction set in the lower 48’s Pacific Northwest and our northernmost state—including Kristin Hannah’s bestseller The Great Alone. . . and I have a copy for one of you. Subscribers (free or paid) can reply before August 1 with the word ALONE to enter. I’ll draw a winner at month’s end.

Here’s the online gist :

Alaska, 1974.
Unpredictable. Unforgiving. Untamed.
For a family in crisis, the ultimate test of survival.

Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.

Thirteen-year-old Leni, a girl coming of age in a tumultuous time, caught in the riptide of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, dares to hope that a new land will lead to a better future for her family. She is desperate for a place to belong. Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for the man she loves, even if means following him into the unknown.

At first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. In a wild, remote corner of the state, they find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the Allbrights’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources.

But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but themselves.

In this unforgettable portrait of human frailty and resilience, Kristin Hannah reveals the indomitable character of the modern American pioneer and the spirit of a vanishing Alaska―a place of incomparable beauty and danger. The Great Alone is a daring, beautiful, stay-up-all-night story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature.

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***NOTE: This book is mainstream general fiction and is rated MODERATE on the clean-read scale due to recurring profanity, intense domestic violence, and scenes of a sexual nature.

Here’s to a huge stack of books for you—and vacation time to devour them.

Speaking of devouring . . . Should you find yourself reading in some far north forest, keep your eyes peeled for grizzlies. A friend told me that given a choice between writers and readers, bears will devour readers every time. I challenged her on that, but she simply shrugged. Said, “Writers cramp, but readers digest.”

Love,

Cheryl