Hardscrabble

Staring out straight from the photograph, stiff
In their black rumpled wool, fiercely
Uncaring of looks—in their day no one
Looked—they all worked, her dark sleeves
Moving in half-moons to sow the hens’
Feed, or round and round stirring
The vat of lye soap in the yard, or
Scrubbing the kids in the battered tin tub
By the stove, those kids they swore
They'd keep in school, not in the fields
As they'd been. Of course,
There'd been no choice. Years past, before
The kids came, before the doc, gin-soaked
And weaving, drove out in his truck,
There was the night of the barn dance, when she
And one other had walked out alone, their breath
A white frost. And he'd
Asked her—why, he hardly knew, her
Shining black hair like his mother’s, that night
A violet pinned at her breast. She'd said
Yes—who knew why? His talk tight-lipped as
Her dad’s, but he held liquor better—she'd
Watched. She thought: Steady. He
Thought: Pretty. And from that
Page by page torn from the calendar
From the feed store, good years with
Oranges for Christmas, bad years when
Heat killed the crop. The year she first
Saw his back stooped, and she threw out
Her wishbook from Sears. The year he saw
Blood on the quilt when the baby came
That would be last, and he worked extra
Acres for rich men, to buy her
The radio—both of them knee to knee
Leaning toward Roosevelt’s voice—years of
Neighbors shamefaced on the porch, him
Slipping them dollars, her biting her tongue, turning
Back to cook beans once again. But
When he strolled through the gate whistling, he'd
Had a bad day, and she'd scold the kids:
“Don't you fret Dad.” Roosevelt
Saved them from foreclosure, one month
To go. And the kids grew up
Watching, to work and to vote and to
Marry—the girls chose good men, moved
To town—central heat, plumbing,
And pleasure. But Mom and Dad
Stayed put. Their treasure:
The one at your shoulder who looks out
And sees what you see—the blank
Ungiving sky, the fields scarred
By drought, and rolling out
To the horizon, the pale piercing
Green of first planting: their
Labor, their long chance, their land.

~~ Shelley from the DFA blog
"Poem in honor of all happy marriages and hard-working parents in DFA"