Two evenings ago I was a hundred miles from home, wearing the raw silk suit my man brought home for me from an art show and that I rarely have a reason to wear. I was sitting at a table with two other poets and their spouses, eating steak and salad and trying to ignore the desserts on the table, waiting to hear which excellent poets, writers, and artists would win an Oklahoma Book Award.
I was a finalist in the poetry category for my collection, Not a Prodigal. I signed a few books. I talked to poets and writers, my people. We shared hugs and good wishes. I didn’t win, but a friend, Hannah E. Harrison, did, for her picture book, Friends Stick Together.
A long evening, and it was past midnight when Dale and I finally left the turnpike, navigated a stretch of shoulderless highway, and turned onto the dirt and gravel that takes us home. We fell into bed, exhausted.
About six, I heard my name, and in that haze between sleep and waking, I thought it was a dream. But I heard it again, more insistent. My husband was standing at the window pointing to a charming young raccoon, a slash of black and white across his face, who was trying to figure out how to get into one of the chicken pens.
I let Nike out. She sent the raccoon back to his hollow tree along the creek bank. She enjoyed the run and a perceived victory. On this day, no harm was done.
There’s a balance between the wild and the kept on our place. I had to kill a sick opossum last year. It broke my heart. I have to keep my cats in the house and my chickens in covered runs to save them from the opossums, the raccoons, the coyotes, and the hawks that share this space with us. I wouldn’t have it any other way. We all belong here.
On this rainy Saturday, I slipped into jeans and tee shirt and heavy Carhartt hoodie and went out to inspect the fences, rake away hay to see if there were entry points into the runs, and to carry stones and blocks from the piles I’ve collected to shore up weak places. It was a good day’s work.
Like my literary life and my farm life, the natives and the immigrants on our place coexist. It is not without questions and occasional struggle, like when I’m hauling a big black snake out of the chicken pen and dropping her over the fence, knowing she’ll be back. But I’m willing to do the work to make it work.
If only political parties, countries, armies, and religious sects would do the work they should so the world could coexist as we do right here, in Oklahoma, on a rugged square of clay and trees and water. It requires give and take and a lot of hard work. There’s drama and heartbreak, fear and fatigue sometimes, but mostly there is contentment and beauty that I wish all the world could share.
Apocalypse Farm 