Poem for Tuesday

Wildwood Flower
By Kathryn Stripling Byer

I hoe thawed ground
with a vengeance. Winter has left
my house empty of dried beans
and meat. I am hungry

and now that a few buds appear
on the sycamore, I watch the road
winding down this dark mountain
not even the mule can climb
without a struggle. Long daylight

and nobody comes while my husband
traps rabbits, chops firewood, or
walks away into the thicket. Abandoned
to hoot owls and copperheads,

I begin to fear sickness. I wait
for pneumonia and lockjaw. Each month
I brew squaw tea for pain.
In the stream where I scrub my own blood
from rags, I see all things flow
down from me into the valley.

Once I climbed the ridge
to the place where the sky
comes. Beyond me the mountains continued
like God. Is there no place to hide
from His silence? A woman must work

else she thinks too much. I hoe
this earth until I think of nothing
but the beans I will string,
the sweet corn I will grind into meal.

We must eat. I will learn
to be grateful for whatever comes to me.

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Why so late? Oh. That would be because I slept till 10 and still can't feel my fingers well enough to type. Am not sure whether this is from being sick or from the Nyquil. It would help if sinus pressure would stop shoving my brains against the top of my head, thus making them both hurt.

Gacked from , was aiming for the same answer as she got, would be perfectly content with this one (as long as he's, you know, pre-Department of Mysteries):



The HP Male Marriage Quiz made by Sapphire.

Also, gacked from everyone on LiveJournal practically:

My journal says I'm 60% masculine.

What does your LJ writing style say about your gender?

LJ Gender Tool by

tells me that this is old news but until I read about them this morning in 's journal, I did not know about the Gay Penguins In Love!

Is that everything? I think that's everything.