When I visit
the old farmstead
and the nearby town
I look for faces
that mirror mine.
More often I find
no resemblance
and I have to accept
that most of the line
relocated to Iowa
during the oh-eight recession.
That said, the banker
recognizes my father in me
and offers to buy me lunch
at the diner that once served
great depression soup lines
so I can fill him in
on what our family is up to
since the wind scattered us.
He points out a youth movement
in farming with technology
and how the old timers
couldn’t make ends meet
on family farms now too small
for efficiencies
and market fluctuations.
He makes arrangements
for me to meet the young man
who rents our acreage
and the adjoined family farms
where GPS navigation
did not turn the tractor around
for three straight miles.
Though this young man is new,
he walks us straight to the rows
where my dad’s ashes
were plowed into the black soil
twenty-eight years ago.
copyright © 2020 Kenneth P. Gurney
Umflop 