Farmer's Daughter

Farmer's Daughter

by Annie Dillard

from Tickets for a Prayer Wheel, 1974

There's always unseasonable weather.

Remember the flood that killed father:

when the water went down, the chickens

lay muddy and drowned. Oh we watch

the weather here on earth; we don't forget

the winter days when girls wear cotton dresses,

the Aprils when the bushes sag with snow.

We were cutting the apple trees back

when he said, "Look, it's snowing";

but I'd seen a winter of snow

and knew that more were coming.

Still, what do we know of a season?

Only father could say

when the rain would stop at the mountain

or ruin the hay. I'd try to watch

the hawks or lick a finger,

and the crops were still a failure;

there was frost all over the valley,

south as far as Twin Hills.

He kissed me when the shadows were long

on the path to the orchard; he promised

to meet me again when the apples were in;

now when the wind parts the curtains,

now in the city when the cat won't come,

I sleep with only one eye shut,

keeping a weather eye out.