05. Bitter in April

I remember a sun too weak to touch the ground
an arctic wind
keen as razor, flaying
ear-tips and fingers
shivering the flanks of the short-haired hound
guarding the grain.
Flurries of powdered snow cuffed-out the sun
salting the crumbled loam.

The tractor ran all day.
The dog stayed by the sacks of seeds
confronted by another scent,
the stranger
sowing barley on the open fields
as smooth and as empty as desert dunes
and as soon as I touched a bag he returned
from patrolling the fence
or the edge of the ditch

and the sacks on the tractor’s metal seat
gave little comfort, and the wind
probed cuffs, between
the upturned collar and scarf
and the little engine throbbed as it drew
the load of the seed drill’s iron-rimmed wheels
ruling its progress over the fields
and the long seed-box was filled at each return
with burnished barley grains.