NEW HAY
The scent of hay
thrown upward in the cutting
Too rich and heavy to remain aloft
falls back to lie among its fallen friends
Walk shuffling small feet through it
and it lifts again in clouds to nostrils
Breathed in sweet particles remain
I do believe … there’s some there yet
LADY
You could see her shine from miles away. She had
a movie star way of standing out from other horses.
Her rich chestnut coat always looked oiled and
polished with a deep inner glow that some people
have and you can’t describe. Sort of an abundance
of life that can’t be contained in the body and
radiates from every pore
And she wasn’t easy, coming from a line of
aristocrats. No one could ever ride her mother
or grandmother and her father bucked in rodeo
My brother tried to ride her first, the place where
she broke his arm still hurts when it rains. Not a
frequent problem in Saskatchewan
She bucked me off twice, both times for arrogance
Once in front of relatives from Oregon when I
dropped a rein and leaned over her neck to get it.
I was off balance and soon off of her onto the hard
ground in front of the shed. She did step on me
some too, just to drive home the point
The other time was in a soft field where I was
teaching her to neck rein and making circles to the
left and right. A car was coming down the lane and
I turned a little in the saddle to wave
It was enough, I was loose and I was gone. She piled
me so hard and high that I came down standing up
with reins still in my hands. Pretty good I
thought and started to take a bow for the people in
the car, but the lesson wasn’t over. She came
around full force with her back end like Babe Ruth
with a bat and knocked my flat
Every morning she would buck for the first half
mile, sort of an ongoing initiation; earning the
right to be with her again and again. She would
never be taken for granted and I knew that I would have to
face that test every day, and I was scared but I always
wanted to be there
And I stayed with her every time
I guess I had my fear to keep me tight
and my butterflies to keep me light
As I partook in some small way in Alexander’s feast
and took my classics lesson there
Only the brave
Only the brave
Only the brave deserves the fair
THE CROW
TWO BOYS AND CROW AT 50 YARDS
TWO SHOTS AS ONE THE CROW FELL STILL
WE LAUGHED AND RAN WHOSE HIT WHOSE MISS
TWO HOLES IN HEAD
AS CLOSE AS THIS
O O
THE LIFE WAS IN OUR EYES AND SKILL
TOO FAR FROM DEATH TO UNDERSTAND A KILL
FARM DOG
My dad doesn’t allow pets in the house
they weren’t allowed in on the farm
where he grew up either
Once when he was eight
the dog came up the stairs
down the hall to the room on the right
where his young mother lay dying
Laid his head for a moment on her lap
and went out again
THE LONELY MEN
Their little dark houses still dotted the prairie
when I was growing up
They all seemed to cling to the soil as if their
life force had all been used up in the long and
difficult transplanting, and they could hang on
but no longer grow
Or they stood alone and surrounded by sadness
and the small and smaller markers of what had
fallen to the reaper’s scythe
Their roots, loosened year after year
by the hot winds and the deep frosts
became more and more brittle
Until one by one they broke off
like tumbleweeds
and were gone
PRAIRIE CHICKEN
I came up through the valley where the homesteaders
had tried to make a go of it for a few years, past the tin
cans and other evidence of their short stay trying to rust
itself back into the ground. Up over the crest of the hill
where the Indians had lived for centuries with no more
evidence than the weathered rocks of tepee rings
It was spring and I stumbled upon what they may have
seen for years, the ageless mating ceremony of about
twenty five or thirty grouse. They didn’t see or hear me
and I stopped about ten yards away and watched,
although my mother might not have thought it proper
The hens ran around, heads down and tails up in
unbashful invitation; while the cocks puffed up the
air bags in their chests and drummed their challenge
And they looked handsome and brave in their posturing
and beckoning and their readiness for reckoning. And
the fights were on, straight on and straight up, with spurs
and feathers flying
It was vicious but pure. Not a cock fight for the
amusement of the bloody minded, but a way to see that
only the strongest would sire the little broods that would
have to survive the hawks and the snakes and the
weather, and all the dangers of a land where it takes a
great deal of courage – just to be a chicken
TEACHER
(In defense of schoolboy crushes)
She was my teacher in grade four
I fell in love for evermore
Not a love I could express
though with schoolwork might impress
And so I spent my nights and days
in search of learning and of praise
A flower opening to the light
in aching anguish and delight
Then she went and moved away
It seemed life ended on that day
Through looking back on that great year
not dimmed by time but made more clear
I see that ancient youthful yearning
remains as love of love and learning
BLACK BEAUTY
When we moved to Grandfather’s old farm
no one had been living there for a while
and all the cats had gone wild
We found a litter of kittens
hidden deep in a corner of the loft
and among them
the most beautiful black and white kitten
Spitting and crouching under the eaves
she scratched us all to the bone
If I’d been a tree there would
have been six rings
Much persistence and we got her out
much time and love and we tamed her
if one ever really tames a cat
Best cat ever
adopted by our cousins when we moved
and one of the things we most looked forward
to on our visits was Black Beauty and her newest
of who knew how many litters
The tomcats in that town were also
excellent judges of beauty
WINTER IN THE BARN
Steam rises off the backs of big horses
The old Holstein in the second stall
shifts her weight from side to side
matching the rhythm of the milking
and flicks her tail at memories
of summer flies
Across the width of the barn
I stand with mouth open
in my biggest five year old oval
catching most of the milk
squirted dead eye straight
by the laughing hired man
In the tack room
kittens wait by a tin plate
to put their morning moustache on
In my memory it is always warm in the barn
MEMORIES OF THREE OR FOUR
I remember being nestled
in that old ranch kitchen
deep in the warmth of washday Monday
The Maytag’s liquid sounds mixing
with the gentle driving chugs
of the little gas engine
Sloshing and chugging sloshing and chugging
as I curled up beside it
in the great pile of laundry
rich with the smells of the people I loved
Half asleep half awake I floated there
all my senses safely cradled and warmed
and part of a rhythm and a sound
like a heartbeat in a womb