Six times a day that bellowing horn
hurried by a quick clack
and the same steel shudder.
In a gust of miles, we are released
and whatever we hold — hay hooks,
coffee, Bible — we feel that tide

drain down the fence line.
Some days rumble blurs of packed cattle
and others glisten dappled cars
of all colors like a freshly shed snake.
When it all pulls thin as smoke,
evening spills on schedule

faces through our lighted rooms, travelers
craned to the nightscape, our moment
framed in their onward dream.
Once more acres of tassels bow, crows
hobble into flight, and now the quake
up our feet is weather, it's Orville

nailed to the wall he knew would remain.
And when furrows stretch
silent as latitudes, we'll be here
working the locomotion we know: silo
and summer dust, tractor and jam,
one day of rest and six to steer our land.