Mary
Townsend Ratcliffe, Marshall County, Spring 1859
Spring has returned
to the prairie.
The sky is a
beautiful cornflower blue,
the air still more
cool than hot,
and my family is
happy and healthy.
John plows like
he’s cutting glass,
absorbed in the
precision of his work,
stopping only to
run
the black soil
through his hands.
I tend to the
garden,
pick daffodils and
jonquils—
narcissus
poeticus and jonquilla—
to brighten up the
kitchen.
Tonight, when the
boys are asleep,
John and I will go
down to the creek
and wash the day’s
toils from each other.
