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INGLES / ENGLISH

By Lee L. Hulm
To the Reader

The poems you are about to read are from the heart. Related primarily to my early history on the South Dakota prairie in the 1940s’ and 50’s, they are intended to give you the reader a new and deeper insight into the true flavor of farm and ranch life on the high plains during that era. For those of you whose growing years can also be traced to that distinctive time and place, these poems will prompt you to recall special memories of your own. I believe there is value in doing so.

Lee L. Hulm, Goodyear, Arizona, February 2006.

Poems and pictures specially for Culturadoor.

FARMSTEAD SENTINEL

If windmills had ears to hear and tongues to speak and eyes to see, what would it be that they would say about life today in contrast to those golden ways gone by? Perchance would they cry out about the disappearance of a way of life where both the husband and the wife remained fiathful to each other… thankful for what they had, persevering through good times and bad, and happiness was not the next purchase away? Perchance would they yearn for a return to an earlier time when the foul smell of diesel fuel was yet offset by the pungent aroma of the mule, its challenge met and come from the field to drink alter a long, hard day? Perchance would they lament the absence of time spent in idle conversation at a barn dance on a Saturday night or at the site of a community social on a Sunday afternoon…missing, there, the fiddler’s tune but also any demands of “Where’s my pay?” Or rather would it be a toast to our efficiency at applying technology unashamedly content that valuable thinking and social skills are sacrificed for the cheap thrills of computer games and boob tube frames that seduce us all as lambs at plays. Okay, okay, I can’t say with certainty what it would be that windmills would do if they had ears to hear and tongues to speak and eyes to see… but I have a hunch I know how it would go! Don’t you?

ADVERSITY

On those cold winters nights in South Dakota Mark Twain was my choice companion, and I huddled around the oil stove and read while waiting for the sandman. Soon he’d come and nod my head and usher me off to a welcome bed… but no heat was there in the bedroom where I eased between the sheets, hence long underwear I wore to bed and wool socks my feet. If I awakened in the night from thirst and shivered to the kitchen for a drink, I’d have to break the ice there first in the pail beside the sink. And if mother nature called at night as she often did, I shuddered to think of the long, cold trek to the outhouse by the shed.

Altough Mark Twain would say adventure lay, parhaps fourscore and more… my curiosity was fed, you see—I’d made the trip befote; so with the threat of of freezing my buns off wrought with fear and dread I chose to withdraw the thunder mug out from beneath the bed. Now lest you think that I’m putting you on, I swear on high it’s true… indeed there are others who can testify to the things we used to do.

AWESOME

I am in awe at the rising sun and rainbows following summer showers and pastures overgrown with wildflowers. I am in awe at newborn lambs and fresh colts cavorting on wobbly legs and chips emerged from incubated eggs. I am in awe at alfalfa blossoms and aromas adorning a morning’s breeze and honey manufactured by busy bees. I am in awe at lightning bugs and spiders ambushing in hollow logs and tadpoles transformed into little frogs. I am in awe at natural things and paintings detailing nostalgic themes and poetry influenced by nature’s schemes.


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