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 earth in a language built of weight. Some movement would always spook them off:

a silvery chisel hefted, or 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