MICHIGAN FARM, 1940s

Ox Team, 1911, Mesick

Michigan Farm, 1940s

Our grandparents came before
the virgin forests were cut.
They blasted and burned,
denuding fields cleared to the horizon,
revealing light shows at sunset
and the late night aurora borealis,
which entertained us in childhood.

When we were small, we could lie down
on prairie grass and stubble;
native weeds so brittle,
they held us up above the earth
like eastern mystics on a bed of nails.

Our father cursed that sod
when he plowed the quarter acre
garden in those fallow fields
that had failed him years before
forcing him to take a city job.

Over farmed, the Sandy loam
that remained, was held firmly
only by sod which went dry in summer,
under the sun's hot eye,
siphoning water from the surface,
as the rest, on deeper levels
sought its way to lake level

We should have worshiped
the quack grass with its matted roots;
thanked it for holding the topsoil,
and preventing the relentless prairie wind
from taking what little dirt was left.

Well Readers, I am finally back from many summer distractions, including eye surgery to mend a macular hole, which caused a distortion in the center of my vision. I am still trying to catch up with both the yard, house and creative work that was left undone. Things seem to be improving, and I am able to use the computer again. Please be patient and expect that my return to this blog will be a slow process.

Writing and Images are the © Copyright of Ruth Zachary, as of the date of this post.

BALANCING THE ARTIST'S LIFE

Alice's Organ, by Forrest Babcock.

A MOTHERLESS DAUGHTER

A Motherless Daughter. Vintage Montage by Ruth Zachary


As she grew, her mother's photograph
Peered down over the top of the piano,
somber light eyes grave and stern
watched while she learned the keys
making magic chords transcribed from
sounds the spirits played upon her skin,
scales fingered in wordless harmonies there.

Her mother's picture hung upon the wall,
sainted now having died of scarlet fever
days after giving birth. She too, had scarce
escaped, found hanging off the bed
in her long nightdress, up-side-down,
like a cat in a sack, hem held fast
under her mother's body, she had been
scooped up by a watchful grandmother.

Sometimes she felt her grandma’s arms
holding, rocking, until sleep came and dreams,
where she could sink into a warm watery world,
where breath did not matter, and the universe
pulsed in her head, keeping steady rhythms
and harmonies, until surrendering, she could
escape those relentless haunting fears.

Sometimes at night, sleep refused
to carry her away, and she would float, adrift,
the raft of bed pushed hard against her back;
body pressed tight between deep
bedding, and weighted darkness.
Overhead, a cold dark cloud seemed to scream,
but she had no breath; no voice, no light.

*This post is out of sequence and should be placed following the entry of Dec. 12, 2008.

All Images and Writing are the exclusive property and Copyright of Ruth Zachary.

A COUNTRY BOY

Farm Boy. Photo Montage by Ruth Zachary.
Click on bottom to see enlarged view.

In a Pig’s eye

Heart pounding,
he knew the pig knew.
It screamed before
the knife struck its throat.
The pig knew he was the predator,
having already heard
six brothers bellow their last curse
in rage and terror.

But …
this one looked him in the eye
as its blood soaked the ground.
He was the last sight
in the the dying pig's glare.
He saw his own silhouette
fade slowly in its gaze;
felt his own seventeen year old
innocence disappear, deaden.

Work incomplete,
he used the gun on the last two.
Avoided that last accusing look,
But it was too late to escape
the wound inscribed
in his own breast,
scar etched into memory.

That night he wrote,
"Butchered hogs today.
Stuck 7, shot 2."

Images and poems are the exclusive copyright of Ruth Zachary.

KINGSLEY GRADUATING CLASS 1904

Lillian's 10th Grade Graduation. 1904 Lillian at right. Click on image for larger view.


An Unfair Portion

It was always my lot in life to receive
the lesser portion of good fortune.

My sister was given great
talent as an artist, but I received
not half as much, a talent I coveted,
as I longed with all my heart
to excel at something; God
only knows how much, and why
my sister was taken to Heaven
never to use her great gift on Earth.

I was saddened by the death
of my elder sister following
childbirth. I wanted a child, myself,
but the fruit of my womb was
a tumor, removed in my teens
which made me childless.
I might have been the one taken.
Or, I might have raised my niece,
but I was still a school girl at the time,
and my mother became attached
to the child, spoiling her lavishly,
unlike myself or my sisters.

I wanted to be a teacher,
but the education required
was not available to me,
as it was later for my niece,
seen to by my own parents.

God took my sister to his bosom
while I endured to struggle on,
endeavoring to learn the lessons
of deprivation that were my lot,
for all my ninety-eight years.

Since music was my only talent
I served the Lord in hymns of praise,
thankful for the meager gifts I was given,
and I surrendered my life to the will
of God, and made it my mission
to be an adamant witness to others
On the behalf of righteousness,

a habit that did not endear me to them.


This poem is the Copyright of Ruth Zachary

VILLAGE GIRL

Filling Her Shoes. Photo Montage by Ruth Zachary

Foraging Near Cottage Street

My mother said In 1910,
there were still trees and thickets
and ponds around Kingsley.

“Grandma Bowers used to take
me to the crick, that crossed the
meadow down the street.
We used to catch fish on a pin,
with a worm and heavy string
or button thread on a stick.”

“We used to go picking berries
like we do now,” she said.
There were raspberries,
huckle berries and black berries.
My mother’s favorite were little
red berries of wintergreen,
or their bright green leaves in spring.

Writing and Images are the exclusive Copyright of Ruth Zachary

THE BOWERS HOMESTEAD 1890s

The Bowers Homestead. Photo Montage by Ruth Zachary

Homestead Near Kingsley

The Bowers came to Kingsley
in 1884 or 85. They settled on a farm
near the railroad where the train
went rumbling across the corner,
its steam whistle warning
anyone on the road.

When the Bowers family came,
to Michigan, they brought
Esther, Ruth and Ethel.
Lilly was born in 1886.
Pearl came five years after, in 1891.

In ’93, when Pearl was two
her mother, heavy with a child
in her belly, heard the warning
and went running to the tracks,
barely pulling her daughter
off the rails in time. Was that why
they moved to the village in 1893?

Or was it for the birth of Grace,
Born in September of the same year?

All writing and images are the exclusive Copyright of Ruth Zachary.

THE STARR MATRIARCHS OF THE 1800s

The Starr Matriarchs - 1800s. Photo Montage by Ruth Zachary.

The First Theory Of Relativity

1 Dr. Comfort Starr came to this country
on the Mayflower from Ashire England in 1620.

2 Thomas Starr was put in prison
for being sympathetic with the Indians.
He was later released and given a tract of land
in Connecticut as compensation.
He raised his family in Thompsonville, CN.

3.Elias Starr

4. David Starr

5. Johnathon Starr was married to Sally Starr.
The couple had three children,
Sara and William J. (third unknown.)

For two hundred years
Women from other families were only
Married into the Starr Lineage,
And were not truly Starrs.
Other family names were extraneous.

By the fifth generation,
Women married into the Starr line
Became Starrs by association.

An Alternate Theory of Relativity

Generation 6.
William J Starr was born Nov. 8, 1843
He died Mar.19, 1907
He married Eliza Jane Reynolds, (Dutch)
In Fallsburg N.Y.

Eliza was born Jan. 20, 18--?
Her parents were Andrew Reynolds
And Catherine Vanbenscoten (Dutch)
Eliza died Oct 7, 1886
Twenty-one years before her husband.

They had thirteen children
In New York State.
Eight daughters, and five sons.
Their farm prospered, and
They were one of the first
Free Methodist families in the country.

Since William outlived his wife,
Either he chose to observe his
Wife’s family history, or perhaps
some of his eight daughters did.

Was there a cultural shift in thinking,
because of educating women who now
Could write down their maternal connections?
Or was it the invention of photography
That affirmed that women existed?

Was this a small act of subversion,
Or was it a Dutch tradition that the
Women stayed in touch with
Relatives no matter how far
removed by patrilocation?

Whatever the reasons, a shift occurred.
Sisters, aunts, cousins, nieces, Grands…
Grandmothers, grand daughters,Greats….
All kept abreast of each others lives,
And proudly passed down their traditions.

Mother Rite

Mothers are the keepers of culture.
For a good while, I ignored my own
mother’s stories, but she whispered them
again and again from her spirited lips
to my sleeping ears in dreams,
reminding me of the ways that in life,
she stitched the Mother rite into my body,
threaded it through my brain,
nourished me with stories of
women’s lives, struggles, victories.
She clothed me in a patchwork,
cut from the cloth of their aprons
and wove me into the tapestry of
our mingled family heritage until
I understood I was one of them.

All Poems and Images are the Copyright of Ruth Zachary. Permission is required to reproduce them.

1903

The Sainted, Photo Montage by Ruth Zachary

Snowstorm 1903

A heavy snow, they said
came suddenly that year in Kingsley,
When you were born in 1903.
Relatives said the doctor
had to take a sleigh to their home
to deliver you into the world.

The day you arrived was
barely in time to survive
your own young mother,
taken by Scarlet fever.
Terrible, to gain your own life
while your mother lost hers,
a burden you carried all your days.

Your father was honored in his sorrow,
but useless in his grief,
to care for an infant,
wandering the country for three years
seeking answers, or his own death,
which nearly took him more than once.

She was first of six Bowers girls
to go. Her family became
death-obsessed. Her picture
was placed above the piano,
to make sure all revered
her memory; altar-like, a shrine
to her saintly status…
by virtue of having died.

And you, by virtue of being her child,
became a half -saint as well, because
if you were sent to take her place
how could you be otherwise, and
what was there to do but treat you well,
while living in fear for your fragility?

Montage Images and Writing are the property of Ruth Zachary.