farming

The Cow Shed

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

She goes to the lowing,

Rustling, cud chewing shed

To absorb a bovine energy.

From their eyes she drinks

A liquid stillness, breathes

Their heavy succulent breath

And observes their due drop snouts

Nuzzling and inquisitive.

More than anything

She finds them quite, satisfyingly quiet.

Despite the constant chewing,

Neck rubbing, hoof stomping

And fidgeting on their halters,

They exude

The deep silence of the soul,

A calm watery expression

Of grass transformed

To sweet clover thoughtlessness.

She drinks this in,

Finds resonance,

Matches their quality,

Becomes equally

And sublimely still.

Monoculture World Order

~ distilledvoice ~ 2 Comments

In one corner of the globe
The terrorists enforce
Their monoculture of thought,
While we in the free west
Subjugate the wilderness
And extort only the soil.
In both, the species diminish
As control devours
The slightest difference
And allows only
The one persistent idea:
That diversity must perish.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Wine Maker – Being Mario Fontana

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I don’t require an alarm clock to wake me in the morning. I rise with the eagerness of a child and the first twittering of birds. You know, there is nothing as fine as the dew sweet hours and no light so heavenly as the first born moment cresting deliciously: I am surely new with each turn of the world. My father toiled on this plot of Italian earth for fifty years or more. Those days were not good for winemakers. But for me it is joyous. Hard work, of course but I am greatly more for each moments focus. My land, strung with vines and decorated with Cyprus is the single most important place upon the earth. I walk it, each delightful day, noticing the minucia, the seasons play and the plants considered response. I do believe they are happy in their growth, flush with greenliness and health for all my careful tending and my gentle approach to the matter of their feeling: I greatly enjoy their being with this glad, succulent heart of mine. I wonder, am I rooted to this place, for I would not leave its ever calling pull upon my soul’s domain and would likely yearn with each terrible footstep into misadventure’s far away? I wonder too, if we are joined, my humanity yoked to the richness of this soil and all that is drawn so willingly? This is my home, among the vines: father to their needs, recipient of their riches, lover of the being we have become.

And the wine? Could it it be less the true wonderment, or measure less than joy, or be less than divinity made earthly? Well, I shall not tell what only a taste can convey.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.