Raking
who reads
into distances reads
beyond us,
our sleeping children…
Seamus
Heaney
“Travel”
Bent
like carpenter’s squares
The
whole field was stripped, unzipped
One
rake pull at a time: swish/tip
Swish/tip
the whole morning swish/
Tip
through and through.
He’d
owned the field and set me
To
work at the string, row on row
Around
and over stones. I’m as
Bog-caught
as moss. So it’s elbow
At
the knee and it looks all the same blue
In
the pail until my two handed carry straightened
Me. That five gallon bucket slumbered
Every
ten steps or so and the winnowing
Machine
so so far away and wouldn’t my toe
Knock
against that stone and almost,
Almost
tumble into the rug of small
Sticks
and leaves. But listen:
Recovery
is sometimes as modest as shifting
The
weight of the load from one shoulder
To
the other. And because my reach was
Short
The
bucket dragged and scuffed
The
August-hot leaves, yellows and faint
Greens. It was routine: fill it, pick it up
And
walk aways and put it down and do it all
Heading
toward the rows of stacked
Wooden
boxes factory stamped.
I’d
be paid three dollars
A
box. It was hot. It was a course of tugged
Twine,
tin pie plates tink- tinking on their staves
To
shock the crows away. It was crushed
Cans
and sweat in my eyes and men mostly going
Up
their row slick as butter, going and going.
I’d pass
My
father and my sisters with this bucket.
And
We’d
talk, me and this spilling pail: Let’s
rest
You and
me. Let’s take it here to sit, let’s… and we
Did. Head through knees I’d see the thirty six
Teeth
of the rake still filled
With
leaves, with little sticks, some long blonde
Grass scrape at my ankle. I’d see the whole
Field
from up there, almost a bowl
Filled
with the day’s haul of the small sweet blue
World. Rakers, it’s a short season. The winnowing
Machine
is low on gas. At last I pick it all
Up
and walk all the way without stopping
This
time, without one more sway, without one more
Glance
at the crows up top cawing at the sun
Going
down. And without saying a word but
My
own name to the man who tips my bucket
Into
the mouth of that machine. I watch it all:
The
berries falling down, like sky in a box.
The heat
Of
the belts and swelter, the choke of exhaust
Coughing
out the reign of the field with her leaves
All
spring, through the bloom, through the browse
Of
bees early on, through summer to now
When
it all comes down to packing it
All
away. All that chaff. All that not needed green
Beneath,
green that tomorrow will be a memory, and still
All
that blue, blue, all that blue ready, bulging
With
sweet fruit, oh yes, ready.