Perspectives

By Lynn Hughes

She says she misses it, sitting on the back porch,
Husking corn, plucking peas from their pods,
I knew she snuck into the garden
To pick the baby carrots and eat the tender beans.
She reminisces about the posthole digger
and the sawbuck for peeling logs.
She longs for the horses and the smell of their tack.
She recalls bathing in the old pink tub we used for a trough.
I remember waking at 5 to feed the stock, 
9 months pregnant in the kitchen canning jam on a sultry night,
Being scared to see her toddle beneath the belly of the mare,
My back aching from putting in the fence.
Burning slash piles in the spring, bucking hay bales in the fall,
Coming home from working on my feet all day
To tend the animals before dark fell.
Cooking some dinner, mending the clothes,
Bathing the children and tucking them in bed,
Taking a moment to watch the night hawk’s swoop
And dozing to the far off coyote’s call.