[the Writing of Kuypers]
[JanetKuypers.com][Bio][Poems][Prose]
farmer
And just north of his corn field there is a college, the university has bought up the property right to the edge of his land. And at that university there is a man studying plant biology, he wants to do research in food genetics, create the perfect ear of corn. And the farmer knows this. All he wanted was to be able to make a living, maybe save up enough so his kid could walk over to campus every morning, maybe meet some new kids. The government assistance has run out, the state wants to push the school south an extra mile, put up a research lab, another dormitory. The drought has done nothing good for his field anyway. And the doctors say the lump under his shoulder is from the sun. All of these years he would wake up early Sundays to work, and he would find tire tracks from souped up cars digging in his property edge. Kids leaving beer cans, junk food wrappers, condoms. And he would pick up what he could. In the upcoming years, would his little boy do this to someone else? And this was his labor: he had sewn the seeds; the plants running, hurdling the rolling hills, sprinters uniform in a marathon. And all the way to the street at the edge of his property, the green sign reading “1800 S”, all the way to the end is his life, his little earth, in straight rows, like the peas on his son’s plate when he plays with his food. And now the rows of corn are less straight, as if in recent years he didn’t care. This year it’s the worst yet, he didn’t bother with the right chemicals, and there are weeds in between the rows. The grass next to his house is almost up to his waist. And he’s awake now, it’s four in the morning, and he’s wandering out in it all, and he’s almost crazy. The grass waves, almost staggers, like him. And he thinks: let the weeds grow.
U.S. Government Copyright
Chicago Poet Janet Kuypers
on all art and all writings on this site completed
before 6/6/04. All rights reserved. No material
may be reprinted without express permission.
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