And a deer steps out of the woods
As if drawn by a magnet.
– James Galvin (“Trespassers”)
The din of machinery, all its whirs and whines
in gear, the wide-range of cacophonous diesel combustion
idles like a chorus awaiting direction,
awaiting shape to trigger bigger things, man things,
like moving earth—the music of accomplishment
flexing beneath a shaggy, dark-brown mane
at four and a half. We are kings for a day
in the Kubota, feeding horses. He wants to know
what the skid-steer’s been doing, as if it were human.
I give him names for wildflowers: show him up-close
a Fiddleneck, Snowdrops, pick Owl’s Clover
and two freckled-faced Monkey Flowers, make scissors
from Filaree spears. Cows and calves come to investigate.
He wants to know how the brands got there. We heat
an iron in a fire we start with paper and split kindling
to cook steaks, burn a quarter-circle C in a sanded,
two-by-six redwood scrap to take home—his namesake.
After it cools, it becomes a tool for moving gravel.
for Cutler
drycrikjournal 