NATHAN A. BAKER

The Poetry Of.
Nathan A. Baker.....................................

Evening Milking

When I was a boy
Long before the perils
Of my eighth year
Summer days would find me

Assisting my grandmother
With the farm chores
Together we would walk
Through pasture to cowshed,

Hands wrapped tightly
Around the handles of galvanized
Milk buckets, to do the task
Of evening milking

She only had a few cows to milk
But by the time we finished
The sky would be darkening
And the first stars winking

In the Carolina night
Then together working to carry
The filled pails we would walk
Smiling and talking back to house

Smell of honeysuckle wafting
From the woods just beyond
The open grassy meadow
Mingling with pine and farmland

Warm the galvanized pails of our labor
And warmer still the recollection
Returning now with the sweet
Fragrance of childhood

Scot's Heather

Brome grass grew wild and the cows loved its taste
She even made her brooms by securing handfuls
Of it together with tobacco twine and knotting the string
She could sweep using the homemade broom in one hand

It was the only type broom she ever used as I remember
She even swept her front yard with one, to clear the sand
Atop the rich black earth to keep it from tracking inside
Grass never grew in her yard, but corn and tobacco did

And sometimes right to the door all green and glorious.
Work was always waiting, and she kept a tidy list
Of things to do and of all the things needing fixing
She always had chores waiting for us to attend to

Granny cleaned house with an old hand-made broom
One hand sweeping floors, the other hand instructing

Long after the trip has ended

The sound stays with you
The rhythmic roar of waves
Washing against the eastern shoreline

The ocean has always charged my spirit
And brought my soul into bearing
With its Creator...

I can hear it now in my kitchen
Against the backdrop of mountain songbirds
On this early Sunday morning;

The hushed roar of God's presence
Whispering to my spirit, that on this planet
Actively at war with His own image

All is well and will forever be well.
The rhythm of the surf whispers,
Come unto me, and I will give you rest.

And the sound stays with you,
Long after the trip has ended.

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