Of a Fordson Tractor

The picture's fading.

Still, it's apparent

the farm did little

to reveal the other

possibilities.

Corn grew, confronted

native yeasts, became

a silage. Bull calves

inevitably faced

castration. Nameless,

distanced, grown enough,

they were prodded up a chute

to vanish in a truck

or were butchered in the yard,

bawling, silenced,

close to the kitchen door.

Roy stood there, reeling,

when the blow was given.

He watched as women

rushed to and fro with pans,

noting they could not seem

to see the fixed eyes harden,

or the waves of silky hair

stiffening with dark blood.

At church Roy found

a certain comfort

in the preacher's shout,

acknowledged his satisfaction

with a Book that said,

"Thou shalt not kill."

Roy's father slept

with his eyes closed

soon after supper.

No blood matted

his wavy hair when it

lay rooted under grass.

Roy walked his furrowed line;

He drove the cattle home,

disdaining now to see

more than a dullness

in their eyes.

Copyright © 1986 Marian Jane Dickinson