Black and White

At the outskirts of town,
the black-and-white sign reads:
“Fourth largest Amish community
in the nation.” On Main Street,
a horse trots, pulling a black buggy.

A bearded face peers ahead,
while his weathered hands dance the reins.
A toddler perches on his mother’s lap,
clutches a Sparkle bag of corn chips,
waves a chubby hand at me, a Yankee.

Over the hill crest careen skaters
in Granny Smith green dresses.
White bonnet ties flying,
they race past schoolhouse,
wood-pile, privies.

In straw hats, suspended blue pants,
with Igloo-cooler lunch pails dangling,
aluminum baseball bats slung over shoulders,
Amish schoolboys talk box scores
as they trudge home to chores.

On lines from white house
to carriage barn, to maple,
teal, maroon, violet polyester dresses
wave long sleeves and skirts,
like unpieced quilts.

Nutmeg Belgians pull plows
across stubborn corn stubble,
while on steep ditch slopes
men wielding gas-powered Weedwackers
cut quick swathes.

At Yoder and Miller farms,
aboard a rainbow-sided Bookmobile,
deutsch-chattering girls, proud
mothers at sixteen, check out
romances by the bag full.

After midnight hooves clatter.
A beer bottle crashes
in the derelict churchyard,
where once an Amishman
hid his forbidden automobile.

When sons or daughters Yank over,
do parents cease loving them?
In my mother’s heart,
I somehow know
their black-and-white life is not.

[This poem first appeared in Pennsylvania English, 2004/2005.]