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Leaving the Farm
David J Walker
I
“At the end of the day”  they keep saying
At the end of the day  
A prepositional phrase followed by 
unsupported speculation
When everything is considered, 
At the End of the Day, is
A simple idiot with an idiom and nothing to say
My father said sitting  quietly
	At the end of the day, smoking 
Speculating about our future
II
What time does the clock strike late afternoon?
Is it just before early evening? 
Is it marked by sundial sunsets sometime
Before dark? 
We knew, my father and me, as we left the fields
Headed home in the summer’s heat
Watching the sun dip into the west just beyond
The hood ornament of the pick-up truck
Even with the windows rolled down 
The wind and the whine of the road 
Could not drown out the sound 
Of our growling bellies
There would be beans and cornbread waiting
Maybe Spam, 
	But not meat

III
Clever, the ways to irrigate
And turn a desert into a farm 
Hard, was the work to care for the 
Rows of cotton and maze  
that would be harvested 
for our money, maybe
Some years it worked
	But for many, it did not
There was no way for anyone to say
Which it would be
There were tractors bought on credit
And the banks still had to be repaid
IV
The men in the middle 
Were always invisible though we 
Knew they wore expensive suits
While we wore jeans and boots
Before school began each year
Mom would buy me two new pair
Of Levi’s from the department store
 on the square
They would last the whole year if
Her predictions of my growth 
Was close. 
V
I can never forget 
	The day we left Lea County 
Cold and gray 
on February 10th, 1966
In a grain truck bound for Lubbock
Dad bought a horse he thought he
Could turn to earn enough money 
For gas and rent 
Starting over was possible
Staying was not

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