Poetry X Hunger
  • Home
  • About
    • About the Initiative
    • Initiative Founder
    • Recipients and Donors
  • Hunger Poetry
    • e-Collection
    • Hunger Poems
    • World Food Day Poetry Competition >
      • 2021
      • 2020
      • 2019
      • 2018
    • Maryland Poets
    • International Poets
  • ART
    • ART Inspired Poems
  • News & Blog
  • Young!
    • Poems by Young Poets
    • Videos
    • Materials for Teachers
  • Library
    • Extent of Hunger >
      • Global Hunger: Progress & Challenges
      • Hunger in the US
    • Historic Accounts of Hunger >
      • Africa
      • The Americas
      • Asia
      • Europe and Russia
    • Historical Poems
    • Interviews
    • Recent highlights
  • Contact/Submit/Take Action
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Call to Action
    • Resources >
      • Global resources
      • US resources
      • Maryland resources

Now More Than Ever:
Submitted Poems

Poem by Katy Giebenhain

5/26/2020

0 Comments

 
Love Letter to a Dairy Farmer

This year was supposed to be a good one. Finally.

And now the virus closes restaurants,
schools, the big customers.
Heartbreak is the sound in drains –
a fresh tide rushing
across tiles and concrete
from Idaho to Maine, from farm to farm
15,000 gallons a day.
And somewhere, all of it is wanted.
All of it is needed.

This year was supposed to be a good one. Finally.

What I want to say
is how essential you are. You deserve
Cole Porter lyrics. You deserve a serenade
and decent prices every day.
No matter where milk or
the voluptuous power of butter lands –
refrigerators in motorhomes, houses,
skyscraper cantinas, in every
coffeeshop in every time zone.

This year was supposed to be a good one. Finally.

Udders don’t shut off like faucets.
Bills don’t disappear.
For generations, on schedule,
stanchioned cows bring it
like miners above ground.
Fears and hopes lift
like Jersey eyelashes, like Holstein belly-sighs.
Nothing is abstract.
Farmers know.
​
What I want to say is thank you
every year. And may this one come to be
what it’s supposed to be. Finally.


Click on the file below to listen to Katy reading her poem
love_letter_to_a_dairy_farmer.m4a
File Size: 1938 kb
File Type: m4a
Download File

Picture
Katy Giebenhain is an ex-expatriate poet living in Pennsylvania. She is the author of Sharps Cabaret (Mercer University Press).

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Now more than ever

    These poems have been submitted to the call for poetry "Now more than ever" 

    Archives

    October 2021
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020

    Poets

    All
    Anne Harding Woodworth
    Billye Okera
    Cathy Porter
    Chandra Gurung
    Chantal Do
    Charles Perrone
    Cliff Bernier
    Clifford Bernier
    Dee Allen
    Dennis Price
    Fizza Abbas
    Giulianna DiNapoli
    Henry Crawford
    Hiram Larew
    John Medendorp
    Judith Robinson
    Lavina Blossom
    Linda Ankrah-Dove
    Lisa Reynolds
    Lynda Scott Araya
    Marlena Chertock
    Marsha Mittman
    Martin Chivaku
    Michael Ratcliffe
    Mike Maggio
    MistyRose
    Nick Romeo
    Nina Padolf
    Paul Guenette
    Phyllis Klein
    RD Armstrong
    Richard Littlebear
    Sara Robinson
    Sue Budin
    Teresa Peipins
    Waseeq Mohammad

    RSS Feed

Copyright Poetry X Hunger 2024.
Proudly powered by Weebly
Photo from John Brighenti
  • Home
  • About
    • About the Initiative
    • Initiative Founder
    • Recipients and Donors
  • Hunger Poetry
    • e-Collection
    • Hunger Poems
    • World Food Day Poetry Competition >
      • 2021
      • 2020
      • 2019
      • 2018
    • Maryland Poets
    • International Poets
  • ART
    • ART Inspired Poems
  • News & Blog
  • Young!
    • Poems by Young Poets
    • Videos
    • Materials for Teachers
  • Library
    • Extent of Hunger >
      • Global Hunger: Progress & Challenges
      • Hunger in the US
    • Historic Accounts of Hunger >
      • Africa
      • The Americas
      • Asia
      • Europe and Russia
    • Historical Poems
    • Interviews
    • Recent highlights
  • Contact/Submit/Take Action
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Call to Action
    • Resources >
      • Global resources
      • US resources
      • Maryland resources