SETTING A GOOD EXAMPLE
The farmer prays for rain
and goes right back to work
he seeds the seeds
and he weeds the weeds
and oats his horse if he has one
but as summer goes by
he may scan the sky
with the boils and the patience of Job
and mutter
as Job might have muttered
while trying to set a good example for God
HORIZONS AREN’T EQUAL OUT HERE
The East is fine
for color on the way to the barn
but by the time the chores are done it’s gone
The rest of the day we watch the West
That’s where the weather comes from
That’s the direction the grandfathers faced
when they got this far and found
what they were looking for
or gave up
unhitched the horses
and sat down to watch the sun set
THE FARM, THE RANCH
AND THE SWEEPING SCYTHE
Sunrise can be brilly bright
and all day long
everything out to get you
The horse can kick or fall
the bull has horns of steel
Every machine is grinding its teeth
in wait for a chance to bite
and every snowstorm
eager to find you
too far from the barn
and stiffen you like the manure-pile cat
The sunsets worth surviving for
THE TURKEY SHOOT
Small town Saskatchewan
raising money for the curling rink
Targets fifty feet away
and old bent-sight 22’s to shoot
The trick to bringing a turkey home
was not how well at the bullseye shot
but how fast you learned that life
is sometimes three inches down
and two to the left of where you aim
November 22, 2017
WATER TO WATER
See the old farmer
sitting by the sea
Born on the prairie
it was water to dust
Dust and dust
and praying for rain
and shovelling snow
and cursing hail
And carrying life
up the hill in a pail
And always trying to get back
TECHNOLOGY
The day breathed in
and the day breathed out
After lunch my father took a nap
– the horses had to rest
By supper time they were fed
fed and brushed and thanked
And then the tractors came
– and tractors do not nap
Not content with that small theft
they soon grew lights and stole the dark
He fed them gas, they pulled the plow
But not once, one to the other
did they ever speak of love
MATH
If a train leaves Moose Jaw
heading west at the speed of first memory
Engine, cars, and caboose
zebraing by behind a snowfence
smoke billowing back over its shoulder
And another leaves, traveling east
from my writing of it now
When will they meet
at the small town of Courval
and your reading of this page
THE AUSTRIAN UNCLES
Already old when I was young
revered as I would hope to be when old
Two brothers married to
two sisters of my father’s father
Great aunts
always as they’ve always been
busily bustling round the house
while the uncles somehow stay
both present and out of the way
Little china cups in work-hard hands
black coffee and home-brew
sipping the day away
Sunsets are long in these latitudes
and filled with color
The color of sunlight refracting
through soil and seed and dreams
picked up by west winds
and held in suspension
along with prayers
for a good harvest
What it might pay off
and what it might pay
a little something
down on
A little rain brings them
back to earth again
CLEANING THE CALF SHED
Forty below outside
not much warmer
on the inside
A hundred little Herefords
dropping and stepping
where it freezes
where it drops
The calves are
four feet closer
to the roof
by April
After the thaw
sitting on the steel seat
of the little orange Allis
with the front end loader
Driving in hard
and pulling
out
fast
Manuria
in one nostril
spring
in the other