Speak to the Earth
Rachel Peden
Indiana University Press; $19.95
4 stars
Rachel Peden, 1901-1975, experienced the life of a farm wife with a knowing heart. She recognized the hard realities of making a living off the land while savoring the rewards of connecting with the hornet that built its home of paper; the indigenous plants that popped up in a well-tended garden, stayed a season and moved elsewhere; the possum gathering leaves onto her tail, curling it and carrying the load to build a nest.
Peden shares observations along with opinions and humor with honesty. She’s poetic and blunt, as the need arises, to make her point as she carries us through a year of observations beginning with: “The February day was ending in a cold sunset … a dazzling silver disc in a gray muslin sky…” to “It is June and the wheat is ripening … The morning light is blue and gold, the color of contentment…”
The insightful foreword by Scott Russell Sanders and inviting drawings by Sidonie Coryn are lovely companions for this collection of brief essays. It is best savored slowly, read aloud in companionship with another or alone, for the sheer pleasure of hearing voice give flight to well-crafted prose.
More at iupress.indiana.edu.
