KALDEISCOPE

KALDEISCOPE

the fascination of my preschool life

for a keep quiet afternoon

on a rainy day

when my brother and I were

being boarded on prairie farms

during WW2

I get the same sensation now

if I rear up too quickly

and have to settle myself to prevent

a fall

I stare at the electronic page

on devices unimagined

in those innocent times

listening to music

coming from a station

two thousand miles away

being played on electronic instruments

people sang then

and every good home

had an upright piano

situated in a parlor

a room with song sheets

and fancy ornaments

and any trophies won by members

of the family

a fancy settee and easy chairs

book shelves and photo albums

a small elegant writing desk

pen and ink

and even more elegant writing pads

dirt farmers aspiring to be middle class

where your place in the hierarchy

was measured in how much land you farmed

there were many subsistence farms

in those days

anything under a section

was considered small potatoes

and at harvest time

the small stake holders went

from farm to farm

as part of the trashing gangs

using their labour

as payment for getting their crops

thrashed and into their granaries

the cash in hand  prior to the yearly grain cheque

came from the women’s side

of the equation

their vegetable gardens

their egg and chicken business

and the milk and cream business

which took care of the incidentals

because the grain cheque usually

went to the bank

to pay the mortgages

and seed if you had a disaster

like being hailed out

in those days there wasn’t artificial fertilizer

used on the land

the manure from the dairy cattle and plow horses

the chicken and hog manure

plus the crop rotated clover summer fallow

kept the land in good shape

every big farm had honey bee hives

a rarity these days

with the GM crops and the evil of Monsanto

and their lethal insecticide and herbicide

upsetting  the balance of nature

poisoning the water table

and turning back the clock

to making family farm  owners back into

pre industrial peasants
tennant farmers on their own land

and the small boy in me

still sits at the window

hoping for enough blue to

make a Dutchman’s pants

and twilling the tube

containing the kaleidoscope

trying to duplicate the arrangement

and anxious to be outside

in the wonderful world

that was those farms

JWL