Caren Krutsinger Poet Narrative

What took you so long

I was the offspring of two farm kids who fell in love.
They both were up at four a.m. to do their chores.
Five o’clock would have seemed like a gift in their childhoods.
So, they gave me that gift of “sleeping in” until five.

I did not have eggs to gather, a cow to milk or feed to spread.
But I did have a slew of chores, and this was not a request.
There were three of us kids, we still get up at five.
I text my sister at 5:05 and she asks, “What took you so long?”

Five a.m. is our regular wake up time.
We could get more things finished before school than a teacher.
hoeing, weeding, raking….
in the dark? We had a streetlight, didn’t we?

One time I said to my sister “why do we have to be busy every second?”
She laughed.
We were farm kid’s kids, she reminded me.
I texted her at 5:01 today and she texted back “been up since four”.

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