| Bosses of Morning In the summer at the farm the sun came to us the children to heal the morning of the night worries to make a slit in the world to crack open the cold quiet and feed us on its yolk. The sun came to us the children gleaming through the leaves shuffling round the corner where the dirt road left the dell rolled out and passed our door. In the summer at the farm we the children were bosses of morning charmed with the bright first side-light of the sun that only we could hear. When the sun came we the children left our beds slid down the steep steps feet-first-then-butt feet-first-then-butt pushed open the door at the bottom of the stairs and stepped out into morning pajamas and bare feet toe-heel-toe-heel out onto the slick porch dew down the four wide steps to the cold brave lawn and backwards up the steps again. We looked across the dirt road at the garden in the shade Big Cat on the stone wall hay in the field waiting all for the sun to come to them. When the sun came loud enough for grownups to hear the women carried swinging crazy water buckets to the garden. Big Cat left the field for the barn. The boy from town rode his tractor through hay stalk stubble high on tractor’s seat glowing gold and too handsome to look in the eye. We the children bosses of morning watched him float through the field and prayed for the rain to hold until the other men came with pitchforks and bare arms to scoop the hay into tractor's trailer escort it all pitchforks carried at attention to the barn where Big Cat slept on the cross beam and only opened one eye when we the children bosses of morning flying from ladder to loft to manger claimed the day won the hay ours and life a grand masterpiece. © 2001 by Tulis McCall |
||