sara Etgen-Baker Poet Free verse

Notes About The Poem

image from poetess' personal scrapbook

My grandmother's name was Helen Claribel (Morain) Stainbrook. She's in the picture (bottom left corner)  sitting next to her parents, Stanley D. Morain and Ivy Catherine (Britigam) Morain.  Stanley and Ivy met while teaching at the Kansas School for the blind.  They married and had 15 children including three sets of twins. Stanley himself was legally blind but still managed to work the land and assist others who struggled with their own blindness.

HARDSCRABBLE LIFE

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The windmill groaned before the dawn,  
her hands already chapped with dawn-tasks,  
his fingers practicing Braille lessons on the kitchen table~  
both stiff-backed and deliberate,  
both heavy with the weight of wheat and words.  

Fifteen names,  
each one dug into the earth like fence posts:  
Clarabell, Dulce, John, Stanley,  
each syllable hauled up from the well  
with aching shoulders.  

The schoolhouse smelt of ink and sweat,  
of small hands learning Braille and
the shape of silence,  
while their own children ran wild
between rows of corn,  
half-feral, half-holy.  

Drought years gnawed at the ledger,  
but the well never ran dry~  
only deeper,  
only darker.  

At dusk, they counted heads by lamplight,  
his thumb brushing her cracked knuckles,  
her voice a rasp of hymns and harvest.  
They buried two.  
Thirteen grew tall as sunflowers.  

The Kansas prairie took what it was owed~  
calluses, sweat, sleep~  
but left them standing,  
left them leaning into each other  
like split-rail fences  
in a wind that never stills.

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Line Gauthier January 4, 2026 at 8:18 PM What an amazing family ~ beautifully crafted tribute, Sara ~ you must be so proud.

Paula Goldsmith January 4, 2026 at 10:02 AM Your "HARDSCRABBLE LIFE" is a wonderful write. It sure was hard back then. Great Picture.... I enjoyed reading. Have a Blessed Day/Week Writing Away......................