Last Load

Baled hay out in a field

Five miles from home. Barometer falling.

A muffler of still cloud padding the stillness.

The day after day of blue scorch up to yesterday,

The heavens of dazzling iron, that seemed unalterable,

Hard now to remember.

Now, tractor bounding along lanes, among echoes,

The trailer bouncing, all its iron shouting

Under sag-heavy leaves

That seem ready to drip with stillness.

Cheek in the air alert for the first speck.

You feel sure the rain's already started---

But for the tractor's din you'd hear it hushing

In all the leaves. But still not one drop

On your face or arm. You can't believe it.

Then hoicking bales, as if at a contest. Leaping

On and off the tractor as at a rodeo.

Hurling the bales higher. The loader on top

Dodging like a monkey. The fifth layer full

Then a teetering sixth. Then for a seventh

A row down the middle. And if a bale topples

You feel you've lost those seconds forever.

Then roping it all tight, like a hard loaf.

Then fast as you dare, watching the sky

And watching the load, and feeling the air darken

With wet electricity,

The load foaming through leaves, and wallowing

Like a tug-boat meeting the open sea---

The tractor's front wheels rearing up, as you race,

And pawing the air. Then all hands

Pitching the bales off, in under a roof,

Anyhow, then back for the last load.

And now as you dash through the green light

You see between dark trees

On all the little emerald hills

The desperate loading, under the blue cloud.

Your sweat tracks through your dust, your shirt flaps chill,

And bales multiply out of each other

All down the shorn field ahead.

The faster you fling them up, the more there are of them---

Till suddenly the field's grey empty. It's finished.

And a tobacco reek breaks in your nostrils

As the rain begins

Softly and vertically silver, the whole sky softly

Falling into the stubble all round you

The trees shake out their masses, joyful,

Drinking the downpour.

The hills pearled, the whole distance drinking

And the earth-smell warm and thick as smoke

And you go, and over the whole land

Like singing heard across evening water

The tall loads are swaying towards their barns

Down the deep lanes.