Deb Johnston

Reports of corn, grains and beans,
her cup is either half empty
or bountifully overflowing.
Watching the pennies dwindle,
when the harvest is poor.
Counting her blessings of simple things.
Her thoughts turn to shoes and shirts.
Barters with herself who is in more need.
The child or the cattle with seeds & feed.
A rare moment when she dreams of
a lavish item just for herself

Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven, 

As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses, 

Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves, 

I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.   

—Walt Whitman

An excerpt from Walt Whitman’s elegy to President Abraham Lincoln. It was  in the summer of 1865 during a period of national mourning of the president’s assassination on April 14, 1865.

I followed the trail

that led into the shadows

of the dark woods.

Once in, I waited near a rope,

was handed spray for my limbs,

then a flashlight beamed where to sit.

I was transported—

back to the turn of the century,

no longer a tourist.

A sailing rig became a working voyage,

as I tried to retrieve a piano,

and developed a love affair.

In a previous summer visit, 

alongside German prisoners of war, 

I harvested our bountiful orchards.

The next year, I rolled up my sleeves

and tackled shipbuilding,

because our men were overseas.

Time, place, culture, history,

it is all there under the stars—

journey with the Northern Sky Theater.

                        —Deb Johnston