Tipton Poetry Journal – Summer 2021
Preservation Lisa Hase-Jackson Drive the tractor. Your husband guides the plow. His stubbornness will require alcohol well before noon. The day must be dry, the earth warm the stakes high – made from straight twigs flagged with strips of cloth, old flannel will do. Furrow straight as can be managed, no matter the barrage, and as true as good seed scattered on warm soil. Remember to stagger plantings, water well from the house spigot, and pray for rain and a straight back. Pray the neighbors don’t spray herbicide on the pasture across the road on a day when the wind is from the east, that wildlife and livestock won’t pilfer, that there are no more frosty mornings. When luck becomes blooms becomes beans to be picked on a dry day in August and placed on ice until ready for the water-bath canner sort the Mason jars and the Kerr jars, often used for moonshine, and boil. Blanch the beans, blanch the lids, pack the jars and place them under pressure on the kitchen stove after shooing away the children but before your husband returns home from work, demanding dinner, quiet, and a can of beer.
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