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Read other letters about this article
~
Hay for the Horses.
~
He had driven half the night from far down San Joaquin through Mariposa, up the Dangerous Mountain roads,and pulled in at eight a.m. with his big truckload of hay behind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks we stacked the bales up clean to splintery redwood rafters high in the dark, flecks of alfalfa whirling through shingle-cracks of light, itch of hay dust in the sweaty shirt and shoes.
At lunchtime under Black oak out in the hot corral,
-- The old mare nosing lunchpail, Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds--
"I'm sixty-eight" he said, "I first bucked hat when I was seventeen.
I thought that day, I started, I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that's just what I've gone and done." -Gary Snyder.
