A delivery of cattle at night

 

we were high on the catwalk

leaning down into the pens

stamping their backs with branding irons

we dipped in yellow paint

 

a lot of clatter and splashings

dust rising through the raw cones

of light sprayed from the lamps

men yelling over the din

 

later I walked between the tall

dark-breathing wooden rails

with an older cousin of my mother’s

I’d met for the first time at work

 

our shared blood meant

nothing to him compared

with his regard for effort

and its due recompense

 

he said little and what there was

to learn from him I learned

by watching his broad hands

that seemed capable of anything

 

 

Old bones

 

in Du Fu’s time it was rare for a man

to reach three score and ten

 

so now approaching a fourth score

I can watch with gratitude a dragonfly

 

hovering just above the surface of the water

and its reflection just below

 

leaving which is flying and which

swimming for the air and water to decide

 

such is the idle disposition of my days

confined by age and impecunity

 

to the simplest and most extravagant

pleasures this life on earth has to give