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FAMILY DIARY

Steven Pelcman

THE FARM 1919

Part 1
Sunday night March 9

The low light makes it hard
To write these words
And the swell of wind
Across the prairie keeps thumping
Against the windows
That I can hardly think
But I can hear him
Beneath me as Poppa shuffles
From room to room so
That I can almost hum
A song to his rhythm
And picture his swollen hands

Those same hands
That had just gently
Prepared sandwiches and hot tea
With whiskey for Momma
As she sat on her chair
Rocking herself to sleep
Beside the fire.

And I would watch him
Take his night stiffness
And cover Momma with a blanket
Blowing out kitchen candles
Leaving the last part of him
On frozen windows.

I hear the shuffling in my sleep
And hum tunes into my pillow
To the spinning
Of rusted wagon wheel spokes.
Poppa would be forever
Mending crooked nails
In dry wood and buildings
Leaning as trees into wind

That carries my grandfather’s laughter,
My little sister’s Jen’s high voice,
The howling of wolves.

Part 2
Tuesday night March 25

The tall grass and wild flowers
Whisper at night
And the quiet purr of windswept
Minnesota with rain
Shines in the moonlight
Competing with

Grandfather’s warm knees
Little Jen sit on
Learning to count
By buttoning and unbuttoning
His shirt

And Momma’s quiet gestures
Along Jens hair
Where sadness takes hold
In the bristles of a brush
And with each stroke
The blinding white light
On nearby headstones
Against our windows
Becomes stars in a black sky.

Part 3
Thursday morning April 17

The cold sun dances
On the ground
And I hear grunts
And know it is Father
Who does not just work the land,
He loves the land
Bleeds in sweat and dirt
In the rows of wheat, corn
In the cold, the heat
In the stench of animal manure
And vomit from hunger and worry

And only stops to drink water
Or tell us stories
Of when he was a child
And Grandfather fought prairie fires
Hail, drought and grasshoppers
Clouds upon clouds of fluttering wings
Turning the earth dark
Leaving a forest of yellow stalks
That in their nakedness,
Made Grandfather feel naked too.

And then the struggling of plough and horse
Cutting through, turning over
And lifting the dirt
As my father leaves me standing
With the wind behind my back
Moving farther away
To where the hard prairie
Remains untouched.

Part 4
Sunday morning May 4

My sister skips through
A field of flowers
Near a stream
That snakes its way across our farm
And she finds herself in the middle
Of a swarm of bees disturbed
And hungry for her
To stop screaming
But she runs until Grandfather
Covers her with a blanket
And then with vinegar
To ease the pain
And sits up all night
To see if she will die.

She lives
But Grandfather is stung too
And days later
Thin and unable to speak,
He walks into the woods
Slowly with bucket in hand
Pretending to pick berries
Instead, searching for the right spot
To die.

Part 5
Monday morning May 5

We find Grandfather
Sprawled among dead leaves
And fallen tree limbs
His bucket still in hand
And bring him
To the family cemetery
Next to Grandma
As Jen plants flowers
And Momma watches from the window

Perhaps knowing that only days later,
She will join Grandfather
On the day Father will cry
Staining the wooden casket
He sands down with oil
That Mother will lie in,
And baby Jen
Will sit on the rocking chair
Alone beside the fire
Humming herself to sleep.

FAMILY DIARY
THE FARM <>I1931

Part 1
Saturday evening June 13

I have always wondered
And dreamed of cities
Not far from
Death’s short walk
Where perhaps life
Was more than too little
Or too much rain,

But as a young man
Where my manhood was measured
Against the height of corn,
The light of day,
The unspoken word,
In the fields
With horse and plough

Buckets of water
Every hundred yards
Feeling the horse-rein-leather
Age in my hands,
I saw my father trying to outrun
The dust bowl clouds
That lifted his shadow
Against the dry earth
Until he decided to lay
Beside my mother and grandfather
In the quiet of family gatherings.

Part 2
Sunday morning July 4

On Sunday morning
Kneeling against tombstones
Jen and I pull weeds
From among the rocks
Where Mother and Father
And Grandfather lie
Among the lined shadows
Feathered by butterfly dust
And spiders.

I watch Jen
Lose color in her cheeks
From the long days and nights
Sitting on Mother’s rocking chair
With Mother’s blanket in one hand
Tea and whiskey in the other
Humming to the movement of dust
The summer swirls of sand
And her baby’s play with mice
And rag dolls made of wood and cotton.

FAMILY DIARY
THE FARM <>I1932

Part 1
Tuesday September 20

The house smells
Of lamp oil and wild roses that
Grow beside weathered wood
And I hear my father’s
Dirt-dried voice
And smell tobacco
On the pages of the same books
That he read to me
I now read to my son
Sitting on my lap,
Stories of farms, corn
Grasshoppers, the wild prairie

And with each turn
Of the page
I see my father’s pipe sliding
From corner to corner
And feel his touch,
Taste the earth,
Breathe in leather and lamp oil
And the sweet lilac smells
Of mother’s hair and the oven bread
Aroma on her cheeks in the morning.

FAMILY DIARY
THE FARM 1939

Part 1
Friday night December 22

When I close my eyes
And think of home
I hear the prairie sing
And pull me
To the howling of wolves,
Baby Jen’s cry
In the middle of the night,
The dust clouds
And the earth
Wet with only
My father’s sweat
And my mother’s sweet humming
In a rocking chair
Now kept safe
Among the ruins.

They are all gone now:
Father, Mother, Grandfather
And baby Jen.

I feel them within me, always,
As my shovel turns the earth
Their hands on mine
In the gentle swaying of
Rocking-chair wind
Against my face.

If you were to dig deep
Into my pockets,
I wish you could pull out
The sweet smell of home.
If only in my head
Stars did not burn
With the light of tombstones,
And the prairie
Refused to whisper at night.

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