What I Think When I Smell Hay

By Maureen Ash

All over the county

in this lull between rains

farmers have mowed hay, raked

it, fluffed it, fussed

like bridesmaids that it should lie

in long flounces under the arched

fickle sky.

The scent of it rolls

off the fields like a popular

song all the radios play. I see

my pirate dad, right arm longer

because of the hay hook he used

to pull bales from the chute, knees

absorbing the roll

of the hay rack on its swells

of farm field, how he could stack