It's late July, so in the garden, I hope to be doing only two things: weeding and watering. Planning done. Planting done. Then I hope to be sitting down with a lemon-rosemary shrub made by Patrick Lango of White Cow Dairy, in Buffalo.

In the fall of 2021, a cluster of things—the virus, turning 50, our growing children, and the state of the nation—caused me to pause. What work am I doing? Feelings of uselessness and alienation crept in, unwelcome feelings which did not ebb with my usual interventions—more prayer and more self-care, which now seems to be the conventional answer to every malaise. 

From 1973 to 1977, my world was divided between the farm community—Newcombs, Plancks, summer workers, and various orphans and strays who lived on the farm for months or years, and were taken in with a good sort of tough love, an enduring form of Newcomb charity—and the people who came to The Stand on Route 7 to buy corn, beans, and tomatoes, known as “customers.” Or, you might say, our living.

I bring you the writing of two literary stars in the Planck-Kaufelt family. My father, Chip Planck, farmed vegetables on a large scale with my mother Susan for 35 years, and now has what I call a micro-farm, with teensy quantities of equipment, crops, and chickens. Many of those farm-years, Dad spent on a tractor. Sitting on a tractor for hours is a solitary sport. For the right mind, it’s meditative. Dad spent many of those thousands of tractor-hours writing poems. “Farm Boys,” which I offer today, is one of my favorites.