“Binding” is a poem from my upcoming book “Bits of Stone, Seed, and Sunshine: Poetry from a Landlocked Heart”. (Look for an announcement on a publication date soon!) This collection is exclusively about farming and the relationship I’ve built with the land, other agrarians, and the experiences I’ve had, and that I’ve seen others have, over the course of almost 25 years as a farmer’s wife.

 

This poem is dedicated to the mostly unsung, often unhonored, and too frequently taken for granted group in agriculture: the farm wives.

Binding

by Vernie Lynn DeMille

She read a book on China,

From the shelf in the small library

Of the small town,

In the middle of a wide prairie.

 

 

She read of China,

where a woman’s feet were bound.

Bound tight to make them small, 

No good for walking,

To catch a man to take care of her.

To bring her fish, pork, or beef.

 

 

So she could plant the rice,

Bear the son,

Cook the meal

Harvest the grain, 

Pick the berries,

Sew the clothes, 

Bind the daughter’s feet,

Warm the bed,

Gather the eggs,

Care for his honored parents,

And sing his praise in the town square.

 

 

While she hobbled on perpetually broken feet.

Her pain a testament to her adoration,

Her crippled gait evidence of her worth. 

And remain beautiful in the eyes

Of the man who took care of her.

She touched the black and white image,

Her fingers trailing over a small foot,

And felt an echo of binding

In her soul.

 

 

She breathed deep, closed the book,

Put it back on the shelf, wiped her eyes,

And told herself it was better here.

 

 

Here, where a woman 

could catch a man differently.

Here where she could prove her prowess

With a pony and a rope,

Hay forks and feed sacks,

Sweat stains and scratches 

From barbed wire and rabbit brush. 

 

 

Here where she could stay 

Up late for the calving,

Rise early for the milking,

Make lunches for children to take to school,

Watch the sky and livestock prices

And worry for both.

Hear the men and their talk

Of the crops, the calves,

The lambs, and the land,

Wife trouble and woman problems,

Their goals and the government.

 

 

No foot binding here.

No hobbling for these agrarians. 

A man needed a tractor and a wife,

And they both had to work,

To be a farmer here.

He needed her sturdy strength, her tireless efforts,

Her unfailing love for what he already loved,

Long before he knew her.

 

 

No binding of feet

To keep her from working. 

 

No binding of feet

To keep her from running.

 

Running fast, too fast;

And far, too far

To call for chores

Or a hot meal

And a warm welcome at night,

When he’s too weary to work anymore

And seeking rest and release in her bed. 

 

 

No binding, no breaking, no mutilating

Of what he needs from her

To do his work. 

 

 

But…

She wondered,

As she climbed in the pickup truck,

Slid behind the steering wheel,

Beside the medicine she’d gotten from the vet,

The milk replacer and nine penny nails 

From the farm supply and mercantile,

And his new jeans from the department store,

She wondered if there weren’t other places

Where a woman’s body could be 

bound up, bound to, and

Broken, controlled, made small, 

and crippled. 

 

 

And she swore she’d never,

No matter what it cost,

Bind up her daughter’s heart,

Her mind,

Or her dreams

And make her small enough

To fit in the heart of a man

Who loves only his land,

Only his work,

Only his dreams

And not the hands that helped him get them. 

 

 

As if their chores,

And what they grew together in the soil,

Were more important 

Than what grew apart

In their souls. 

 

11 November 2019