Country folk in August

Of country folk in august

Whenever we tackled the creekside shed
there was always something else to do
such times as we were stumped, or nails ran short, 



or the sun looked round the fir and bleached us down
from raftering, roofing, or the like.
We leaned, gossip-like, against the cool 

framing's 

naked shade, sipping solar tea,
watching some cloud's long tasseled skirt
chase the neighbors' horses leisurely 



across their pasture, down the camas swale
and up the other side, against
black backgrounds, maple-shrouded hills. 

The horses liked 

to amble to our corner, stand and watch.
We couldn't shake them of the shies, though,
try as we might with proffered handfuls 

of our green grass, 

or blandishments, or clucks.
They'd check us out: first one black blink
from behind the forehead blaze, and then another, 



cocking their long heads round to register
our self-assured, our predatory faces,
gazing on them, horse-flesh accountants 



surely. Their flanks would shiver, and their forefeet stamp,
scoring the earth in a language built of weight.
Some movement would then spook them off: 



a silvery chisel hefted, water bottle sloshed,
spattering sun. They'd hammer up the swale;
caressingly we'd watch them go, 



coveting our neighbors' lands
and all that lived thereon,
as country folk in August always do.



1995-2009