You tourist composed upon that fence to watch the quaint farmer at his quaint task come closer, bring your camera here or fasten your telescopic lens if you're too indolent; all I ask is that when you go home you take a close-up among your color slides of vacationland, to show we pay the price for hay, this actual panic: no politic fear but tumbling wild waves down the windrows, tides of crickets, grasshoppers, meadow mice, and half-feathered sparrows, whipped by a bleeding snake. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org |