yesterday i bought a new tractor, bright
green and imaginary, to drive around on my farm, also imaginary, i work hard
letting everything go to seed, tomorrow i’ll draw circles in the raging thistle, postcards from an imaginary farmer
on earth we are hopeful, we imagine
life everywhere, not just farms, but cities and zoos, playgrounds and ghettos, military
bases, bus stations and churches
we imagine oceans and holy lands and great divides and bermuda triangles
we watch the morning news, we buy
lottery tickets, we enjoy weekend picnics on scenic mountain rest stops, feed
the mosquitoes and perform our mating rituals, we live mostly in history books
and artwork, the past is always present and right now is for planning the
future
on imaginary farms we plant the
future
(yesterday i found an old banjo in
the barn and whipped up a little fertilizer song, tomorrow i’ll sing it at a
barn dance, everyone barefoot and happy, every face a harvest moon, strawberries
and tomatoes, potatoes and corn, bountiful and imaginary)
farming is tough here on earth, always too much rain, not enough
rain, always never enough pesticide or artificial flavors, or cheap toys at the
bottom of the box, little plastic yoyos, little plastic spaceships, always we must rotate our crops
some of us own and some of us rent,
some of us collect novelty bumper stickers, some of us still make our own
butter, we have this thing called a soul, mostly for cooking soul food
we invent the portable time-space place between our ears, and the packing peanuts to fill it with, we imagine oil wells
and electric chairs and coffee grinders and millions of stray weather balloons,
we imagine international space stations and spacesuits
with lots of pockets for secret stash snowglobe memories of home on the range
(back on earth, i get the tractor
stuck in a ditch, jackknifed with the disc, wheels spinning and spitting mud, all
of that and apocalyptic weather reports with satellite photos of broken banjo
strings, i jump up and down on my hat, then remember i can shift gear and
reverse, back up and repent, giggle and draw circles)
everything makes perfect sense on earth, bring your beer goggles, our language is mostly a barrier, read our
traffic signals to understand our religions
our internet porn is adam and eve
honest, streaming digital high definition and leaves nothing to imagination
we imagine we’re all going to hell
we imagine life everywhere
at the end of the day, i imagine my
work is done, millions of circles in the fields, weeds blowing under a lazy
moon, kick back on my porch, swat mosquitoes, play banjo, i imagine a love song,
something satisfied and simple, something we might put on the radio, or a love
letter
or a greeting card, greetings from
me and my tractor, imagine a happy contraption, night clubs, book clubs, doomsday
clocks and soul food
2013
