Editor’s Choice

Ink

    by M.E. Hope

After the funeral, like so many other days

she enters the wide chasm of the barn

leans against the wall in the granary

and begins to read his notes,

less mysterious than hieroglyphics,

just his record keeping:

1/3   – 7 extra bales

1/18 – 2nd night in

1/22 – Early lamb, triple, 2 dead – Marjorie

Each board a year – January 1964 begins

at six and a half feet –

little to report until lambing,

calving, field notes

and bales fed, then shearing,

bag count, and weights.

Late summer sometimes

a record of rain, temperature –

then the hay days, hours and bale

counts. Perhaps a per pound price

for lambs.

Nothing to indicate sixty

years of marriage and four kids

except that each had at one

time added a note, hers in rhyme

age 9: “Spring has sprung, smell the cow dung”

traced over in blue ink by his hand.

© 2014  M.E. Hope

M.E. Hope currently lives, and writes, in Belgium.  A recipient of a Fishtrap Fellowship, Playa Residency and Individual Artist Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission she spends her days watching the amazing Belgian Blue (Blanc Bleu Belge) cattle and searching for the perfect cheese.