WHITE CHURCH IN A DEEP FIELD
Nothing much surrounding--
Barns with rust-busted roofs
In the back shadow of the steeple,
Turned sod running rivulets to horizon
Ragged right-angle fence lines on
To meandering culverts and the sloughs
Cross-veining this low country
Stark white with storm clouds behind,
A yellow-green field at its front, heads
Of mallards bobbing up and down
In search of wigglers and slugs
No cars no trucks no tractors
Are seen as the Virus keeps
All away from this House
Lutherans here share the genes
Of my forefathers and mothers
Who in this place took their pain
Their lost child their failed crop
To find solace, community
And a reason to push past
The shear face of despair
A better life was the light
Cast by churches across North
Dakota’s vast prairies and before,
Along the steep pine folds of Norway
Where births and deaths were logged,
Marriages made and dances danced
To the bow of the Hardanger fiddle
Now others from other lands have come--
The rock below the broken plow the same,
The lost child, the lost crop the same,
The same pain, the same hope, the same grain
Standing in the morning shine, the same name
For the unknown days ahead give us this day
In this place by our hand our daily bread
Nothing much surrounding--
Barns with rust-busted roofs
In the back shadow of the steeple,
Turned sod running rivulets to horizon
Ragged right-angle fence lines on
To meandering culverts and the sloughs
Cross-veining this low country
Stark white with storm clouds behind,
A yellow-green field at its front, heads
Of mallards bobbing up and down
In search of wigglers and slugs
No cars no trucks no tractors
Are seen as the Virus keeps
All away from this House
Lutherans here share the genes
Of my forefathers and mothers
Who in this place took their pain
Their lost child their failed crop
To find solace, community
And a reason to push past
The shear face of despair
A better life was the light
Cast by churches across North
Dakota’s vast prairies and before,
Along the steep pine folds of Norway
Where births and deaths were logged,
Marriages made and dances danced
To the bow of the Hardanger fiddle
Now others from other lands have come--
The rock below the broken plow the same,
The lost child, the lost crop the same,
The same pain, the same hope, the same grain
Standing in the morning shine, the same name
For the unknown days ahead give us this day
In this place by our hand our daily bread