R.E. Slater - Sunday Afternoons (a poem)

Sunday Afternoons

by R.E. Slater

Here I rest, enjoying

a hot, lazy, Sunday afternoon;

the perfect weather to read and write.

Well, any weather is though isn't it?

For a writer, you just go with the flow

of whatever a day brings.

Today, it dwells in thoughts of

earlier, dustier, dry summers

lived out in the country with only

my thoughts as company; the

hot scent of scorched earth against

your skin; and the quiet drone of

the browning hay and grain fields

lit in golden fire shielding the

restless crickets and grasshoppers, 

meadowlark and bobolink.

These were the days of youth,

when nothing else existed;

where all stood still

for the close observer to

discover; inhale; breathe in-and-out

the withering graces of a hot sun

uncaring its habits or heats; of a

life lost upon the endless stretches

of undulating grain fields broken

occasionally by rutted tractor paths

worn down with time and usage.

In those days all was quiet.

Without demand. Simple.

Distant. Unhurried.

Mediating time with space.

No need of anything... but love.

And the seldom companionships

which occasionally drove up

upon the dried lawns; unexpected

visitors; happy of heart; generous

with their smiles; come to stay, to

remember, to speak of the old days

and the old ways; come to visit our

hilly, forlorn homestead, itself an

island to yesteryear's afterglow - 

but not of its laterly progress

downwards; drained upon the lands

of time of livestock and working hands.

But for the moment, for this Sunday,

this holy day of rest and contemplation,

absent past histories lived on in their

sweet memories of toiling fellowships,

earthy work, the grind, dust, dirt,

oil, gas, tractor, and warm barns.

But now, for the day, all stood still,

lost upon the deep recesses

of mind and heart

These were the lost lands which time forgot.

Bereft of its previous lives and families,

whither native or pioneer, premodernist

or urban dweller, who once had stopped

living on the golden lands of blessing,

abandoned - for one reason or another -

to the streams of time. Which now 

lie in the drone of the field crickets

in their ageless rhythms; or like an

older earth belatedly encumbered

by the weary human habitations

of pestilence, war, drought, or disease.

Lately become unnatural to its ancient

rhythms beyond the gentle goodness

the land once bore. Living beyond its

circle of days and years, uncaring

the burden but its own sorrows.

Nonetheless progress came. Unstopped.

Unwanted. Undoing. To a land beyond

time; and a time beyond modern 

remembrance; of a sudden; in the

blink of an eye; within a short generation;

taking with it an old, weary, world

forlorn and neglected, like so many

other things forgotten; a modern day

demanding sustenance beyond what

the good earth could provide for the

times which were given to those

unworthies unwilling to walk

any further its burnt landscapes,

hardships, or natural rhythms.

Refusing what was, for what could be,

and thereby refusing earth's wisdoms;

which seldom come to a hurried mankind

bearing stopped ears which cannot hear;

holding eyes full of cravings unnatural.

Nay, here lay a dying land that knew

it was dying but stayed its death for a time

upon the nether wanderings of those few

who stayed upon the hot days

remembering the shattered remains

now lying here, now there, like whatnot

lying about my feet; discarded things

used long before I had life; or had yet borne

the torpid breath of a burning land

faithfully obeying its summers and

seasons as they came and went

year after year after dying year.

Where blessing lived long beyond all else.

Where beauty was seen by inward souls

looking outwards beneath a burning sun.

And when looking, finding contented

satisfaction known only by earth's

oldest peoples who sang of its beauties,

its hardships, its wilderness become

familiar to the one who had stopped

to listen and feel the land's breath.

Who considered the ways of the ant,

the insect, the grasshopper, and beetle.

Whose paths beat along the hot breezes

slipping in-and-out upon the turned

brazened face searching for relief.

Knowing a circumspection which must

come to every living being willing

to stop and listen; beholding an

earthly wisdom where none else

could be found in the accumulating

days of farming heat and dry weather.

R.E. Slater

July 5, 2015

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