JUST IN CASE
Fog along the creek –
sycamore silhouettes,
limbs without leaves
dance at daylight as if
guarding the threshold
of a medieval forest,
beginning unknown.
Woven with a fallen
branch and seasons
of the ungrazed, a
hay rake rests
among the trees,
not awakened
in my lifetime.
Perhaps Len Bequette
cussed it
when he unhitched it
the last time
the creek ran enough
to irrigate hay,
when the day came
it didn’t pay –
or on the edge of open
saved for hard and hungry
times, ‘just in case’
like old farmers do –
rusty monuments,
little clues.