Even when away from Nebraska, I find it, this time in Ted Kooser.

Pasture Trees

Generations of cows, long gone to market
fat and forlorn, once lipped the lowest leaves
and nibbled the lower limbs until these old

box elder trees are level as thunderheads
across their bases, showering shadows
into the long, lush grass, a rain of absence

pattering flat on the hard-packed cow path
turning toward home, toward the hilltop barn
that fell away, that followed the cattle

lowing into the past, its creaking slats
sore-sided as a rack of wet alfalfa
from laboring under the weight of weather;

that steamy barn that hid the rising sun
as the cows walked slowly out into the world
every morning like widows leaning on air;

that stark, black silhouette that for a moment
each evening held the galvanized pail
of the moon tipped under the bony elbow

of an eave--a dented moon that slowly filled
with milk for the many who lived here then:
happy, unhappy: young people and old

who borrowed bitterly to own those creatures
who danced all day on their back legs, stretching
to eat the very trees that gave them shade.

posted by Matthew Schmitz   [2:55 PM]

[ website ] :: [ contact ] :: [ home ]

XML