Notes from the Farm

Nathan Erwin

Jericho, Palestine

You are my eyes, he would tell me

as if I were his son, not his brother.

This land is his. My eyes are mine – brimming

& warm as Majool dates set out for the sun. 

In his dying, I stopped farming 

to sit by his bedside.

I spooned the great moon and little broken

drips of stars that leaked from his beard.

While I was away, the sand courted the goats.

Our horse had to be put down. 

It’s hard for him, for me, to breathe in the middle of the day.

In Ofer Prison, jailed for my shotgun leaning in the barn, 

I read Gibran & Emre & my eyes became the eyes

of these plantations of freedom. You are my eyes, my son, 

my eyes. The trees need water. The earth grows salty.

The goats, thin. Though winter, the rain has yet to come. 

Our al-Auja, our tuned acequias play across Jericho’s roots;

Our careless Auja boys cool off in the spring.

My brotherland is dying. Our children’s lull

drinks the mirage of the thirsty soldier, the Americans, 

the shelling to the north. All on the eve of midday,

I see for my father, my brother,

& my daughter. Our eyes, her tears 

with which we will feed our people and bring forth a great flood. 

 

M. Frank Erwin

Nathan Erwin

Swallows keep painting your name in the leaves

splattering psalms on the edges of elms               

& buttercups 

                             lifted to the chin.

Your children from all your wives called us,    

so we could say goodbye. Who thanked you 

or said, you’ll be a star up there?

Though the line was quiet on your end,

you said you’d come to visit,            

but you did not come.

This morning you said you would not come,

should I expect you?

Soon, in Mother-night’s river,     there’s a hand on my chest.

She says thank you.

& you stand behind her in the doorway

you’ll never walk through. In the shadow water, I heard you splashing

up and down the stairs.

    Today, you’re harder to get a hold of than an honest man in Washington.    

Dear Uncle, dear Lord, the morning you died was 

so close at hand & so long ago –

You called on a Saturday, almost midday, 

and I put you on silent.  

And now, every Sunday before I sleep, I listen to your voicemail.    

& pray again for your missed call. 

 
 
 

about the writer

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Nathan Erwin is a rural poet, educator, community mediator, and researcher at the School of International Service, American University. With a family tree rooted in the North and South, Alabama moonshiners and Vermont dairy farmers, Erwin grew up in the hills of Newark Valley, New York. N.D. Erwin works as a poetry editor for Folio and Barrelhouse Magazine. His poetry has appeared in a number of print and online publications, including Redactions, Wordgatherings, Breadcrumbs, Sonic Boom, and Old Red Kimono. His book Hemp and Farm Justice (Mandel-Vilar Press) is forthcoming Fall 2020.