Recently, my husband and I graduated to a new status in our family. When my mother died last October, we no longer have any parents who are alive on this earth. Now we are the “old people,” the ones who will need to be cared for one day. This stage isn’t something you strive for, but it kinds of sneaks up on you.

In 1993, I talked with a friend whose parents could no longer stay on the farm that had been in their family for 137 years. As no one in their generation had gone into farming as a way of life, their daughter had to help sell the farm and find a place for them in town. It was heart-breaking. I wrote this poem for their daughter and her siblings who were going through this process.

Who Are They Now? (March, 1993)

137 years
her family worked this land.
It’s who they are.

The farm is still there,
but not theirs any more.

She is a runner,
venturing out
from a parent plant
whose roots,
once deep and secure,
have been pulled up.

She helped loosen the soil
that held it there
to transplant it
in town,
the brown earth of the farm
clinging stubbornly to the roots,
dark and moist,
against the town’s loam.