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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
WITCHING ON HARDSCRABBLE, by WALTER ROBERT MCDONALD Poet's Biography First Line: Farming on dry land, a man keeps his witch-stick Last Line: Brought in elsewhere in texas. With my own eyes. Alternate Author Name(s): Mcdonald, Walt Variant Title(s): Witching Subject(s): Drought; Farm Life; Prairies - Texas; Water; Agriculture; Farmers; Plains - Texas | |||
Farming on dry land, a man keeps his witch-stick handy. It might be dark little pepper clouds at night, maybe a coyote lame in the hip and desperate, cramming his head through the chicken wire and choked to death. Something will give a sign, and faith aside, you go witching. Women I know like willows, most men take oak or sycamore. If Zacchaeus could see the Lord from a sycamore, my Uncle Murphy used to say, the same branch ought to point me to the water of life. But it's maple for me, the peeled crotch bone-white and hollow in the heartwood, tiny tubes that sough in the wind like ghosts I hear offering advice. Go, they moan so low I sometimes think I'm dreaming, Go. And I go that way for a while, the maple dragging the other way. I've seen my daddy bring them in five times a summer. The record is six, one short of perfect. I've wondered if it isn't this land I keep scratching to make a living, hardpan, ten inches of rain a year, flat as the day Columbus was born. I've seen wells brought in elsewhere in Texas. With my own eyes. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SETTLING THE PLAINS (1) by WALTER ROBERT MCDONALD STARTING A PASTURE by WALTER ROBERT MCDONALD SKETCHES OF THE TEXAS PRAIRIE: 'APRIL RAINS' by GEORGE BOND THE LAST SALOON IN LUBBOCK by WALTER ROBERT MCDONALD TO THE EVENING STAR by WILLIAM BLAKE VERSES ADDRESSED TO IMITATOR OF FIRST SATIRE OF HORACE by MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU FRED ENGLEHARDT'S BABY by CHARLES FOLLEN ADAMS EVENING by ISABELLA LOCKHART ALDERMAN |
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