Swamp coolers all we had, we ran around half-naked
as kids in summers over a hundred, men and women
worked the fields in broad-brimmed hats, burlapped
gallon jugs at the end of each row. Sunscreen from
March to November, I’m wearing down, can’t take the sun
as I wait under a crescent moon above the undulating
ridgeline, our supine maiden sleeping, for enough light
to get the day started, load of hay ready in the dark.
It’s all planned now: catch a horse, feed the calves,
change irrigation water, then back to saddle and leave
to sort the calves from cows and haul them down the hill
to feeders full of alfalfa to weigh, worm and wean.
Dust from a hundred years of cows will boil up
from the old corrals, bandana bandits going slowly,
tip-toeing horseback so we can all breathe easier.
drycrikjournal 