heat

heat

summer heat, hay bales, working, throwing bales over our heads

placing bales in a wagon

tracktor engine, gas line smell

 

heat everywhere after working so hard under the sun

sweat, trickles off the nose, the only place not hot is the milkhouse,

water on the floor, running into a drain, white clear wet enormas mouthfuls of water,

the hose, drinking from the black industrial sized hose, the taste of rubber

good though,

 

then to unload the wagon, lossing a coinflip and ending up in the barn throwing off the converyor

again  bales land bury the legs, unable to keep up, arcing off the top, hands reach into the strings of the bales to throw

unending, the barn smells hay, smells corn silage, sweet afternoon shadows, forever

 

finally sliding thirty feet to the dust stamping floor of the barn, three birds rise and fall and turn and make the day seem glorius to us, pushing each other, laughing, going to get our checks from old man Gasson

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Emily B]

you took me home again, to the milkhouse, and the smells of bleach and water, of cow sweat and mud, and sweet milk, and the silage and there are other barns, too, i remember the tobacco barns of family and neighbors, how dark and dusty and aromatic they were

but my favorite smell, the one that transports me to my younger self, is silage, how strange is that?