These four poems by Liz Del Prado explore the fatigued resilience of the internal self and the roughly rewarding labor of being a caretaker to the land and to the community…
by: Liz Del Prado
My Lavender
There’s a quiet sadness
That lays with my lover and I
In the dim shelter of sleep.
Sighs shake her bushy shape to life
Stirring a perennial fragrance which
Hides away when something stronger comes
She’s felt in her entirety in that darkness.
We’ve known her presence for a long time
Her faint softness beckons for company
In the silent moments of my life
I find myself sitting with her at length
in the truest months of winter.
The rest of the world sees my
Yellow light of compassion and joy
Forever blooming like calendula
Cherished like daffodils in early spring
It smells delightful like a mellow espresso
Wafting into your senses over conversation
This light is the strength she hides behind
Giving her a full sun to bask under
My fears feed her like a soil’s nutrients
She is my Lavender.
A Subtle Serving of Shell Shock
Today is a place of palpable perfection
with its tranquil trees and flowing flowers and humble hills
There are dancing dragonflies and busy birds
in whispering winds
Baby blue skies and burnt brown buildings
and gentle green grass that soothe the soul here
Crawling critters stumble along concrete cracks
in the same disorientation of myself a night before
Today’s mumbling motors create the same
tense tremor as the night’s thunder
Flashes of flickering lights stir
anxious adrenaline in the armor around my arteries.
It’s not the stubborn storm
not the rain’s ricochet
not the careful calmness of my once hostile home
that drives a dagger of damage through my essence
The sting stems from something so sophisticated, simple.
The Places Where Time Passes
Feeling the time pass here
In the Sierra Nevada emptiness
reminds me of watching
the Wyoming stars
twinkle in my youth
Both places bring heavy
sighs of inhaled comfort
encompassed in the
darkest shades of security
These places are so far removed
from the purple mists of grief
embodied by the half breathed
goodbyes on my way to the breakroom
And from the orange phantoms of
reassurance and validation
that follow my tail along the
corridors that lead me home.
None are places I call home
All are filled with stories
for a future full of kids
wondering what it took
to create the teacher standing before them.
A Farmer’s Change of Seasons
The last of summer is spent ensuring
Wood is stacked, water collected
Tires are changed, house cleaned
Fires kept ablaze, desires preserved.
The first hot shower of autumn scalds
the perfect calmness right out of my skin
I'm only left with anxiety-ridden bones
that exist underneath; the heat has melted
all my composure down the gray water drain
that waters nothin’ but the summer’s dust.
Come spring this blistering water will flow onto
A pruned tree destined to grow fruit for the season
Washing away my winter's depression and despondency
That water will bring with it energy to start a new spring
To forgo the need for hot water again means I’m leaving again.
Until then, I need it.
Need the hot water, the fires
The comfort, the companions
I need the scalds of luxury to remind me
there is something to live for.
I’ll leave before the last of harvest season.
A homestead full of fruit trees and horses, junk and dreams
A bed full of corn and tomatoes, lettuce and beans
A yard full of wheat and rye, barley by all means
The hot sun that makes them grow pushes me
towards a future in a new state, following a calling
Time to teach our youth the misery of growing food.
What it means to be a humble farmer, seeing it out.
The seasons watch my slow decline into depression again.
The stress absorbs my every thought; a cycle students won't see for years to come.
Where there is no time to rest aside from when the snow flies and cows are fed,
The cycle of a humble farmer raised in a place there is only winter and July.
Liz Del Prado is a 23 year old agriculturalist with a commitment to sustainable farming and community education. She’ll be attending school next year to pursue a master’s degree in agricultural education. She’s been writing creatively since middle school. She’s been published in my community college’s annual journal for literary arts under her true name for the last four years. While she hates to call herself a poet, most of her publications are poetry. She spends most of her time writing short stories in the folklore/fantasy realm. Her creative work is often influenced by a deep commitment to equity, her close-knit community, and the rhythmic, seasonal labor of the land.
