Hay Season, and: Story of the Bean Stakes

HAY SEASON While we're gone the landlord mows his hay. We return as crows are dropping on bared nests and a fox stalks small prey between windrows. Baling time, and we're home balling. With each pass the window rattles and we're wondering whether we'll be baled like weeds stored sleeping in the barn until the landlord's cattle nibbles our toes. When we're done love-making we're hot as trussed thistles. Bales dot the fields, their trapped beetles snapping. Evening arrives in sneezes. A bluegrass band comes down from the hills to saw Turkey in the Straw on their fiddles. STORY OF THE BEAN STAKES for David Four axe strokes Fell a maple sapling The bark is stripped With a knife The shavings curling inward Like unanswered questions The stakes lie in snow At the garden's edge Until tilling The dirt is raked into hills Four beans go in each mound Three stakes are planted At the base of each hill Tied together like wigwams They stand in the rain-moon An abandoned village Before the sprouting The ancestors Get into the vines Climb like children The tendrils questioning The sun Donald Levering ...