Warm

Too warm for a coat

(Too late to go back and change)

Windows down

Air gusting

Farmyard wide and empty

And the wind meanders mild and free over the heavy smell of animal

Motions smooth with habit

(But never smooth enough to suit me)

And I fill the pails and watch the water slosh high and lift them with tough arms

And the barn is full of clean wind

Stronger than the musty hay

But still married to the tang of dung

A prosaic smell and everything is immediate and real

And somewhere deep inside I want it to rain for the poetry of the thing—

In the parlor again

Hose, milkers, water

The droplets spray impishly back at me

And my mind wanders and spins and spirals

Around the Nameless thing

Endless

Captive

Frightened of the winds of change and conflict

That suddenly waft so near

But the cows still have to be fed and milked and bedded and cleaned

And so I hold on to the familiar things

And just take one day at a time.