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Wisconsin
Earlier, through stones and burdock and under
barbed wire, the dog had raced each August day
out to the fields of timothy and beyond
to where the Guernseys, swollen with the glut
of summer, grazed beneath mountains of cloud.
Darting and feinting, she brought in the herd
past the long shadows of the row of trees,
the maples and box elders and forked birch,
granite picked from the fields lining their
ranks,
and through the muddy barnyard, each to her
stall
to wait for callused hands to pull the teats,
relief as the milk sang in the galvanized pail.
But now with snow lying waist-deep in the
barnyard,
life is defined by the narrow paths a man
can shovel. The dog trots out to the pump
and sniffs
cold iron against the acrid moist manure
smell of the barn. Pitchforks and rubber
boots.
The steamy breath of cows. The temperature
for weeks not topping zero. Each day he
breaks
ice from the trough, hefts feed sacks, splits
stove wood.
In the long solitary hours a man
inclined to thought ranges the world and sighs,
imagining a calling, what one does
with leisure, tended lawns, and books at hand;
feeling here in winter's dusk that pleasure
is meager as heat. But who would guess his
heart
when, back on the porch, the barn chores done,
he gazes
out at the night to see, eerie and transient
as wordless longing, the pale blue northern
lights?
Jan Schreiber
©
2000; originally printed in Pivot.
Reprinted by
permission
of the author.
Inner table background by
Amreta's Graphics Corner
Outer table background by
Background Bank
Page background by Country
Manor Graphics
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