Heavy-hocked, barrel-bellied, <br />exhaling billows of steam, they wait <br />while the corn, wheat, clover, <br />and potato fields surround us, finished <br />for the season. We listened to their hooves <br />shift. Blue tongues lick black shoulders, <br />impatient horns stab the ground. <br />Soon Father will open the gate <br />to where to the last crop sits <br />sun-softened, stem ends dark, sinking <br />back into the dirt. For pulling plows, <br />for yanking oak and hickory grubs <br />up by the roots, for heaving stumps, <br />for stopping one night on the way home <br />from town, for refusing even the buckled ends <br />of harness reins raising long welts <br />across their backs lathered by sweat <br />and rain, for allowing us to grab <br />their tails, for leading us like blind <br />children away from the wagon <br />perched on the edge of the swamp - - - <br />Father comes, opens the gate. <br />Bald face moves first, walking <br />to the biggest pumpkin, lowering <br />himself to his knees, placing <br />his broad forehead on top, using <br />his weight to crack the rind. Still <br />kneeling, he scoops the mealy flesh <br />into his mouth, chewing, while the other <br />oxen watch us, soft-jawed. Father <br />and I begin our dance, stomping <br />up and down the rows, crushing the sweet <br />orange spheres with our boots, and now <br />they all begin to feed, bending down, <br />rising up to gaze past the barn <br />where the yokes, shares, and coulters hang clean <br />and sharp, past the road to town <br />over swamps now bridged with sedge sod <br />tough enough to hold their weight <br />and the wagons, up and down, lowering <br />and lifting their heads, bowing to the fields.<br /><br />Christianne Balk<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/shorthorns/
