PAUL MULDOON
Hay
This much I know. Just as I'm about to make that right turn
off Province Line Road
I meet another beat-up Volvo
carrying a load
of hay. (More accurately, a bale of Lucerne
on the roof rack,
a bale of Lucerne or fescue or alfalfa.)
My hands are raw. I'm itching to cut the twine, to unpack
that hay-accordion, that hay-concertina.
It must be ten o'clock. There's still enough light
(not least from the glow
of the bales themselves) for a body to ascertain
that when one bursts, as now, something takes flight
from those hot and heavy box-pleats. This much, at least, I know.
From Hay (Faber, 1998)
Also available from Amazon.co.uk:
Moy Sand and Gravel (Faber, 2002)
Poems 1968-1998 (Faber, 2001)
Annals of Chile (Faber, 1994)
Madoc: a Mystery (Faber, 1990)
Meeting the British (Faber, 1987)
Why Brownlee Left (Faber, 1980)
Mules (Faber, 1977)
New Weather (Faber, 1973)