Cleaning the barn
“the springiness, the clip and dart of it”
Seamus Heany. “The
Pitchfork”
Sing it, Seamus. But let me say a word
for the other fork. It sat beside
the one you praise, remember? Wide,
eight tines I think, each one crusted
with shit, some crusts a decade old, some
as recent as my latest failure
to do things well enough to satisfy
my father. “Next time put your fucking fork
away,” he said one time after I
had carelessly left one lying in a field
and he’d run over it, puncturing
a tire that took half a day to fix
because we had no proper tools. Here
is how manure forks work: You thrust
the black and lumpy tines into the soiled
straw, just behind the dung. Walk to the barn
door and fling the mixture out into the pile.
Later you can spread it out on fields
to make things grow. Then you spread fresh
straw so when you let the horses in at night,
they can lie cleanly down. Although
they can, if necessary, sleep
standing up too, by locking their knees.