Joe Raymond
Iowa Harvest Ritual Rustic red paint flakes burnished boards trodden bare under maternal hooves— Wafting warm oats in the morning dew Flies always, always flies swishing tail next to my three-leg stool. Slightly amber, launched by practiced gesture ringing out against the metal pail churned into silken butter. Bountiful sun Heaven kissed stalk, only wind and luck to bless the union affirmed by paradise rains. Pearls of golden nutriment, delectable between the teeth, confectionary gestating quilted below husks of green. Kneading, rising, kneading, baking, wafting chestnut topped fragrant butter’s sponge. Freshest baked bread, richest hand churned butter sweetest corn just off the field hand hewn preacher’s table for sixteen Creamery butter slathered, hearth-baked-fresh-milled-bread cob-cradle threats of diabetic coma from the sweetest of sweet and that butter sopped bread, indescribable treat. I was a city boy who spent his summers on the farm with cousins. Getting up before sunrise, wearing hand-me-downs and hard work didn’t seem like much fun then. Now when I smell freshly turned earth or walk into a field and help myself to an ear of corn or think of any major holiday I am reminded of how rich life was. This is my expression of that lifestyle.
fall 2020
UIndy
91
