Every day I would race
the rolling prairie after chores
skipping through alfalfa stands
fresh-cut clover in my lungs
and Swab at my side -
a mongrel without malice
somnolent to the bone
until the magic hour of five.
A word from me and he
would burn across the barnyard
through the pasture gate
for the daily run
to fetch the cattle home
with a beeline for the hollow
where they fortified their shanks
deep in Cochran's creek
catching early evening breeze
before the long trek back.
Swab would bark their skins awake
and the caravan would resurrect
almost imperceptibly in motion -
Old Duke in the lead
and the heifers in his wake
always single-file, raising incense
from the path that marked their
crossing to the fields of heaven.
Jerome L. McElroy
*Accepted in Southern Indiana Review 9(1)(April 2002).