(First day of the 104th Pennsylvania Farm Show, Harrisburg, PA, 2020)
Imagine the Opportunities
Governor Wolf praises teen commodity
queens in rhinestone tiaras —
Alpaca Princess, Angus Queen,
State Dairy Princess reigning over more than half a million cows,
Grape Queen, Honey Queen, Maple Syrup Sweet Heart, Lamb
and Wool Queen sashed in a pelt —
and hardworking farmers, caretakers,
tinkerers, innovators— from the 48 rural counties of the Commonwealth’s 67.
State Troopers scan the Small Arena, backs to petite champions penned
on the floor: pony, heifer, a pair of necking alpacas, goat digging sawdust.
The Governor takes giant scissors to the wide, blue ribbon
and the opening snip sounds in the stands.
In the Giant Expo Hall, eat a Philly Port cheesesteak,
made of beefy Pennsylvania portabellas, eat apple dumplings,
blooming onions. Read the illuminated news feed:
At least
17 people dead, nearly half billion plants, animals wiped out
as ‘apocalyptic’ wildfires burn across Australia.
Eat baked potatoes,
white or sweet, from America’s oldest grower’s co-op.
Eat potato donuts, cider donuts, Dairyman’s Shake
so thick you can barely suck it through a plastic straw.
Floods in Jakarta, Indonesia
leave 43 dead, nearly 400,000 displaced.
Eat mac ‘n cheese topped
with organic smoked pork, smokehouse sweet baked beans,
chow chow slaw. Eat fried pickles, maple syrup spun to floss.
Pick up A Consumer’s Guide to Food Safety, Severe Storms, Hurricanes, Power Outages.
Buy survival socks knit from Pennsylvania alpaca.
Imagine the Opportunity of a Smaller Carbon Footprint.
Pennsylvania hardwoods from sustainable and local forests
store carbon safely for hundreds of thousands of years.
Cast a vote for your family’s favorite Christmas tree species.
A tee shirt says Honey bees are in trouble.
A tee shirt says Drink your apples.
Take a chance on a 1955 John Deere, an ice cream freezer,
or 75 thousand dollars down on a Ram farm truck or van.
If current trends of heat-trapping emissions persist, Harrisburg’s average
summer temperature will resemble that of Birmingham, Alabama.
What trees should we plant now?
The man wearing a bowtie of polished maple shrugs. Maybe pecans?
We’ll lose our black cherries; we’ve already lost ash and hemlocks.
Find a blank spot to write high on the big chalk board that asks,
Who in your family is the farmer?
Crouch with kids who reach through bars to touch Imagine,
first calf born at this year’s Farm show, asleep on straw, luminous,
as her mother downs 100 pounds of grain a day and sports a fit bit.
This year by the main entrance, privacy booths for nursing mothers
near a play space for kids. New this year: low stimulation/quiet rooms.
At the circle between exhibition halls, animal stalls, rodeo arena,
a moon-phase compass of inlaid granite rimmed by a rhyme:
When stars shine clear and bright we will have a very cold night.
A ring around the sun or moon means rain or snow coming noon.
The moon and the weather may change together, but a change
of the moon will not change the weather.
This poem first appeared in Pleiades 44.1 (2024).
—
Julia Spicher Kasdorf has published five collections of poetry, most recently As Is, from the Pitt Poetry Series in 2023. A collection of her essays, The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life (Johns Hopkins, 2001), received the Book of the Year Award from the Conference on Christianity and Literature and was reprinted by Penn State Press in 2009. Honors include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Pushcart Prize, and support from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and PA Humanities. A Liberal Arts Professor of English, Kasdorf directs the Creative Writing Program at Penn State and teaches in the Summer Community of Writers of Chatham University’s MFA Program.
