Authors /
Shari Wagner
The farm wife collects frequent flyer miles
I find my seat
on a gray plank and grasp
stout rope tied
to a sycamore branch. Leaning
back, I pump
till I’m lifting off over barbed wire,
dusty beans,...
May 10, 2017
The farm wife shares her view on windows in the new sanctuary
...
November 10, 2016
The farm wife looks up at the cosmos
When it’s too nice to nap indoors, I take an old knotted comforter to the back edge of the garden, near tomato leaves I crush for a last whiff of summer. Crickets chorus ...
November 11, 2015
The farm wife hoists the family flag
Eve got off the bus in tears the day her third grade teacherscolded her for using a hankie. “It’s not sanitary,” she said.Miss Pauley had no notion of what a handkerchief means to us:...
September 1, 2015
The farm wife muses upon her Miracle Tree
Everyone laughedwhen it arrived in a legal-sizedenvelope and I showed themthe ad: “For 19.99, watch itreach your roofline in a year.”Just as that stick, plain...
January 1, 2015
The farm wife repeats a lullaby
When Ruth cries out, terrifiedby what stalks the root cellaror chases her toward a cliff,we sing our favorite chorus:Vegetables grow in my garden,...
October 28, 2014
The farm wife examines her Mennonite roots
They’re the riddle in my garden What has eyes but cannot see?Like a stone, they fit my hand...
June 26, 2014
The farm wife eats out at Marner’s Six Mile Café
Widowed farmers cram the tablenear the peanut butter pies,
but I prefer the back boothbeneath a pike framed with flowers....
May 4, 2014
The farm wife finds her necklace in the junk drawer
That’s what’s left of it— six safety pinsfrom a chain I once wore beneath my dress to Saylor’s...
May 30, 2013
Creek-song
It begins in a cow lane with bees and white clover, courses along corn, picks up tempo against rocks. It rises to a teetering pitch as I ...
October 6, 2010
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Creek-side prayer
By the rusty bridge-railover a creek where red-wingedblackbirds congregated on cattails,my grandfather cut the engineevery Sunday morning...
June 2, 2008