by Joyce Sutphen I know how the cow's head turns to gaze at the child in the hay aisle; I know the way the straw shines under the one bare light in the barn. How a chicken pecks gravel into silt and how the warm egg rests beneath the feathers—I know that too, and what to say, watching the rain slide in silver chains over the machine shed's roof. I know how one pail of water calls to another and how it sloshes and spills when I walk from the milk-house to the barn. I know how the barn fills and then empties, how I scatter lime on the walk, how I sweep it up. In the silo, I know the rung under my foot; on the tractor, I know the clutch and the throttle; I slip through the fence and into the woods, where I know everything: trunk by branch by leaf into sky. please note: photo by Ron and Kay Weber
