Rock Picking
Stopping’s essential
when I’m in the quarter ton haystack bucket
half a foot above the alfalfa field being planted to corn
picking rocks where a glacier body scrubbed the land
with defoliating granite boulders.
Stopping’s executed
by pulling back on the red throttle
back on the eighteen gear shift of the tractor
adjusting the separate hydraulic levers that
lift the bucket, tilt the bucket, raise the claws.
Stopping’s immediate
after I signal before jumping off,
not to pick rocks
but beckon him to come down from the cab and look.
Inside a furrow’s a neatly woven circle of old grasses
threaded with black downy feathers
holding six duck’s eggs in a clutch,
the last one laid, the pearliest.
We mark the spot with a flag—back off, go around, ignore.
Just the right distance from the livestock pond for a clutch of eggs,
just the right number for a black duck to handle.
Stopping’s essential
when I’m in the quarter ton haystack bucket
half a foot above the alfalfa field being planted to corn
picking rocks where a glacier body scrubbed the land
with defoliating granite boulders.
Stopping’s executed
by pulling back on the red throttle
back on the eighteen gear shift of the tractor
adjusting the separate hydraulic levers that
lift the bucket, tilt the bucket, raise the claws.
Stopping’s immediate
after I signal before jumping off,
not to pick rocks
but beckon him to come down from the cab and look.
Inside a furrow’s a neatly woven circle of old grasses
threaded with black downy feathers
holding six duck’s eggs in a clutch,
the last one laid, the pearliest.
We mark the spot with a flag—back off, go around, ignore.
Just the right distance from the livestock pond for a clutch of eggs,
just the right number for a black duck to handle.