C and C please
Hay for the Horses
I was only there once,
at thirteen
over to Willie's Uncle Shem's
place on Churchtown Road
off the main highway
From the corner,
you could sense the farm -
the solid house, peg constructed
from straight grain Douglas fir,
barn enough to milk 40 head,
cedar from footlogs to shake top,
henhouse for 100, maybe 200 layers,
white-washed horse paddocks,
rabbit runs,
model hog pens
and the fields cleared to carpet green
from ridge to river.
or you would
if you didn't see
gray board fences rotted,
pig pen dried mud,
land overgrown with blackberries
and scrub alder from run to hilltop,
barn packed with boxes and barrels of beer bottles -
Oly, Rainer, Lucky Lager,
chicken coop chock full of soda empties -
Nehi, Mission Orange, Hires,
house yard, chicken yard, barn yard,
garden plot covered with junk and treasures,
mountains of odd glass containers
broken by time and weather,
Uncle Shem's shattered fortune.
In '44, Uncle Shem returned from France,
broken by winter's war,
to a farm considered the best along the river.
By '46, his glass obsession
washed across barn and yard,
no room for cows, chickens or turnips.
By my visit in '57, the tide had carried away sons, wife -
the last vestiges of sanity
crystallized in dusty milk bottles,
dirty peanut butter jars,
and waves of empties,
no hay for the horses.
(Title from a poem of the same name by Gary Snyder.)
Feb guest is TE Ballard and Gar does garbage at:
http://gardawg.homestead.com/gardawg.html,
Poets for Peace. ˇPoemas sí, balas no!
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