in the heat

==

--

     There is a Reaper whose 
                                        name is Death,
         And with his sickle keen,
     He reaps the bearded grain 
                                        at a breath,
         And the flowers that grow 
                                        between
                                                ---Longfellow
--

in
the
heat

and sweat, the labor,
the misery forced on me by
high-country Colorado

summer's

afternoon sun, I
yank one more bale from ground to
brink of truck bed, its

green

timothy fragrant
to the nose were I of a
proper mind to notice;

however,

I do make out,
albeit in the brief flyby
of bale from earth to

creeping

truck, the mangled corpse,
the freshly broken/splintered
bones, the blood-caked fur

of

a simple mouse crushed,
caught by machinery made
for packaging fallen

hay

from their rows downfield,
and not, it would seem to me,
made for baling mice

==