ANOTHER HO-HUM DAY
Almost how we planned it, a slow
gather of first-calf heifers, both sides
of the creek, running muddy, to sort
and drive with calves to be worked,
weaned and shipped to Idaho –
old-people slow, no cowboy heroics
belly-high at the crossing, horses:
skin-tight fresh, muscles pulsing,
hearts drumming out of their flesh,
everything alive and electric
after two-day’s rain on tall green
under spent remnants of mottled gray –
handfuls. Young cows plod easy
on the edge of our future, grazing
places we’ll never go.