Letters

It’s that time of year when farmers take to the fields. Frost is out of the ground and the soil is dry enough for a plow to turn the cover crop under, strike a furrow and pull up that dark, rich soil we are blessed with on the East End.

If you happen to travel the back roads, you have already seen the changes to the landscape, with those straight rows in the dark soil.

As spring potato planting is underway, we are writing to pass along a poem in memory of our son, Teddy. He wrote “The Soil Is Calling” in 1997, when he was 16. And while we lost him on July 24, 2014, his words live on.

By Teddy Graboski

It happens each spring out on the East End.

Around 5:30 in the morning,

it’s time to get out of bed.

Early, dark, damp, cold,

but that’s the beauty of it.

Hey, Sporty, bacon, toast?

Breakfast is quick.

The soil is calling.

The red ’82 Chevy has been waiting

since November to go.

We shove off. Hats and gloves on,

It’s gonna bite, today.

The seed has already been cut.

The trucks are ready for war.

The barn door opens.

The tractors and trucks just wait there.

For an instant you feel

like the king of the world.

The key turns.

Nothing but a nice screech and a grind

Finally, it’s on.

The John Deere is barking and howling,

ready to hit the field.

The Chevy, the fertilizer and seed trucks,

and the planter are coming down.

Just a little ways from where

Mitchell meets Scuttlehole, we start up.

The seed is dumped into the planter,

the Deere growls up, almost ready.

The soil smells better than

anything could ever smell.

The cold makes you feel proud

that this is what you do.

The plow has already churned up a few furrows.

Boss, let’s get going.

The Deere pulls the planter,

the hydraulics lower down

and we move.

Down the row we go

just the dark soil, the sun and us.

No amount of money on earth

could ever match this feeling.

Never mind potato bugs, droughts, floods,

nematodes, blights or taxes.

Just breathing in the clean air

makes it all worth it.

For the first mornings of spring,

we rule the world.

It is work, but it is glory.

It happens each spring out on the East End.

Nancy and Benny Graboski

Bridgehampton