Read Online Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse - Free Book Online Page B

what I like best about her,
    is Louise doesn’t say what I should do.
    She just nods.
    And I know she’s heard everything I said,
    and some things I didn’t say too.
    November 1935

November Dust
    The wheat is growing
    even though dust
    blows in sometimes.
    I walk with Daddy around the farm
    and see that
    the pond is holding its own,
    it will keep Ma’s apple trees alive,
    nourish her garden,
    help the grass around it grow,
    enough to lie in and dream
    if I feel like it,
    and stand in,
    and wait for Mad Dog
    when he comes past once a week
    on his way from Amarillo,
    where he works for the radio.
    And as long as the
    dust doesn’t crush
    the winter wheat,
    we’ll have something to show in the spring
    for all Daddy’s hard work.
Not a lot, but more than last year.
    November 1935

Thanksgiving List
    Prairie birds, the whistle of gophers, the wind
    blowing,
    the smell of grass
    and spicy earth,
    friends like Mad Dog, the cattle down in the river,
    water washing over their hooves,
    the sky so
    big, so full of
    shifting clouds,
    the cloud shadows creeping
    over the fields,
    Daddy’s smile,
    and his laugh,
    and his songs,
    Louise,
    food without dust,
    Daddy seeing to Ma’s piano,
    newly cleaned and tuned,
    the days when my hands don’t hurt at all,
    the thank-you note from Lucille in Moline, Kansas,
    the sound of rain,
    Daddy’s hole staying full of water
    as the windmill turns,
    the smell of green,
    of damp earth,
    of hope returning to our farm.
    The poppies set to
    bloom on Ma and Franklin’s grave,
    the morning with the whole day waiting,
    full of promise,
    the night
    of quiet, of no expectations, of rest.
    And the certainty of home, the one I live in,
    and the one
that lives in me.
    November 1935

Music
    I’m getting to know the music again.
    And it is getting to know me.
    We sniff each other’s armpits,
    and inside each other’s ears,
    and behind each other’s necks.
    We are both confident, and a little sassy.
    And I know now that all the time I was trying to get
    out of the dust,
    the fact is,
    what I am,
    I am because of the dust.
    And what I am is good enough.
Even for me.
    November 1935

Teamwork
    Louise and I take walks after dinner
    every time she comes.
    By the time we get back
    the kitchen looks pretty good,
    Daddy only leaves a few things he doesn’t
    understand,
    like big pans,
    and wooden spoons,
    and leftovers,
    and that makes me a little irritated
    but mostly it makes me love him.
    And Louise, knowing exactly what’s left to be done,
    helps me finish up.
    She was my father’s teacher at the night school class.
    She never married.
    She went to college for two years
    and studied and worked,
    and didn’t notice how lonely she was
    until she met Daddy and fell into the
    big hurt of his eyes.
    She knows how to keep a home,
    she knows how to cook,
    she knows how to make things
    last through winters
    and drought.
    She knows how to smooth things between two
    redheaded people.
    And she knows how to come into a home
    and not step on the toes of a ghost.
    I still feel grateful she didn’t make cranberry sauce
    last month, at the first Thanksgiving we
    spent together.
    Louise made sweet potatoes and green beans,
    and turkey, and two pies, pumpkin
    and chocolate.
    I was so full
    my lids
    sighed shut and Daddy walked with Louise instead of
    me
    out to Ma and Franklin’s grave,
    where he let Ma know his intentions.
    And Ma’s bones didn’t object.
    Neither did mine.
    And when they came back to the house,
Daddy still cleaned the kitchen.
    December 1935

Finding a Way
    Daddy
    started talking
    about planting
    the rest of the acres in wheat,
    but then said, No,
    let’s just go with what we’ve got right now.
    And I’ve
    been playing
    a half hour
    every day,
    making the skin stretch,
    making the scars stretch.
    The way I see it, hard times aren’t only
    about money,
    or drought,
    or dust.
    Hard times are about losing spirit,
    and hope,
    and what happens when dreams dry up.
    The tractor’s busted,
    we