Rained on Hay

He rises like the sun, with the dawn,
with the damnation.
He will toil, toil and toil
and I will tag along,
searching for the skeleton
keys to the handcuffs
that have shackled him all these years
and robbed him of his song.

He curses more robustly at knots
I have noticed
especially in fence or twine,
but always pulls up short and stops
wipes his grimy brow,
shoulders slumping for a brief moment,
looking down from any field
at the big wolf oak top,
at the sky
at me.

He will sigh.
He will purse his lips,
kick the ground
and advise not to be overrun
by anticipation
not to be undone by “No.”
Never to be discouraged by defeat
never to yield
to a blow.

And the crops do sometimes grow.
And the cattle do sometimes fatten
through the flies, through the drought
through the snow.
And surely we too grow,
the scarred and worn scarecrow
seems shorter each year.
And Daddy’s bravado
belt, beer, shotgun
and gusto
seem diminished
in the shade of what we sow.