Daggum goats got
out the paddock again.
Busted a picket and
squeezed right through, stared me down
as if to say,
Mr. “Big Shoulders,” huh?
And you want hogs next?
I let them browse
and hop on the mower.
Not but one pass across the acreage
before rubber burns and the belt snaps.
Well, if the old pusher kicks it,
then I’ll take a whetstone
to the scythe, after some growth,
and stack that fescue for winter straw.
Toil never ends on this hillside,
but among this hardwood,
“the land’s sharp features seem to be”
jutting only from the cities
where hollow towers
wreck a man’s view of the water
and make his work all about the wrong end;
about the wrong ideal of wealth.
And yet the corporate winch,
with foundry hook and rusted wire,
still drags me back from a day’s reprieve.
pulled from the bourgeoning coop;
from the teeming garden beds;
from the raucous pond as
ducks splash and shake
in the glimmer of the day,
and into the plastic American market
to be ambassador to lies like
“natural light in 5000K,”
“authentic appearance,”
and 2”x 4”.
This, under a canopy of LEDs
for bug eyes to dazzle
over cheap, frail freight.
Give me back my hickory helve and
wrought iron billets of the bloom;
tear me from concrete aisles and
make me dig into the hillside
in search of the temperate earth.
Store me like boiled glass jars,
slipknots around fetlocks
and crates of spuds of all kinds.
And in late fall,
let fog roll from the bottom field,
hover over the oak cord
and cash box at the front;
up to the road, swept
by traffic to and from
the lake, and disperse
to unveil the matte morning.
Alex Berg
Benton, KY