Day 795: Gathering Hay

I love the sight of hay bales in fields. They seem to embody so much,  the timely practice of reaping and sowing, and gathering the harvest for the season to come. But to Paul Muldoon here, they're something entirely more loaded.

 

Hay - Paul Muldoon

This much I know. Just as I'm about to make that right turn
off Province Line Road
I meet another beat-up Volvo
carrying a load

of hay. (More accurately, a bale of lucerne
on the roof rack,
a bale of lucerne or fescue or alfalfa.)
My hands are raw. I'm itching to cut the twine, to unpack

that hay-accordion, that hay-concertina.
It must be ten o'clock. There's still enough light
(not least from the glow

of the bales themselves) for a body to ascertain
that when one bursts, as now, something takes flight
from those hot and heavy box-pleats. This much, at least, I know.