Sonnet 6

For Betsy Locke

The seasoned teacher and her family
live in a neat white house out on the land.
She has no time for phony subtlety;
she clearly wants her life and lessons planned.

Through springtime’s flood, and summer’s swarming flies,
the fall of chicken coops, and winter’s bills,
her teaching helped the dairy enterprise
extract cash from these green and muddy hills.

But in her house the mud was not allowed,
her vacuum is what nature quite abhors,
the fly that’s found inside is duly cowed,
and all her children learned to do their chores.

And she’ll still teach, far from the high school scene,
the lessons of hard work and keeping clean.