Twenty Two Forty
John Deere's numbers and
a friend I trusted for sixteen years,
and better than a monastery.
Out in the open, plowing fields,
gauging the turns,
the hum of the diesel
mixed with the rotovator,
or the swish of the mower,
cheating death on the slopes,
every year the same, yet different.
Watching the earth evolve,
patterns for ploughing,
patterns for living,
earth shaping,
earth sculpting,
earth loving,
new mown grass,
new ploughed earth,
jack rabbits watching,
snakes twitching,
hawks waiting,
cats curious,
sudden summer rains, and
hours spent digging out,
doing repairs in the middle of a field,
do or die,
no one to help,
another life lesson.
Dodging tree branches,
cleaning the tines,
riding down a country road
to the next job,
exhaustion at the end of the day.
Sometimes getting paid
what the job was
actually worth.
Then the repairs came more often,
the hum of a perfect day came less
and less until the day
my friends master pump broke
and I had to walk away.
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