WEBVTT

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The next one is called
"Emergency Haying."

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"Coming home with
the last load I

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ride standing on
the wagon tongue

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behind the tractor
in hot exhaust,

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lank with sweat, my arms
strung awkwardly along the hay

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rack, cruciform.

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Almost 500 bales we've put up
this afternoon, Marshall and I.

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And of course I think
of another who hung

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like this on another cross.

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My hands are torn by
baling twine, not nails.

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And my side is pierced
by my ulcer, not a lance.

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The acid in my throat
is only hay-seed.

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Yet exhaustion, and
the way my body hangs

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from twisted shoulders,
suspended on two points of pain

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in the rising monoxide recall
that greater suffering.

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Well, I changed grip
and the image fades.

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It's been an unlucky summer.

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Heavy rains brought on
the crop tremendously.

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A monster crop, but
wet, always wet.

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Haying was long delayed.

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Now is our last chance to
bring in the winter's feed,

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and Marshall needs help.

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We mow, rake, bale and draw the
bales to the barn, these late,

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half green, improperly
cured bales.

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Some weigh 150 pounds
or more, yet must

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be lugged by the twine across
the field, tossed on the load,

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and then at the barn
unloaded on the conveyor

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and distributed in the loft.

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I help.

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I, the desk servant, word
worker, and hold up my end

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pretty well, too.

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But God, at the close of
day how I fall down then.

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My hands are sore.

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They flinch when
I light my pipe.

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I think of those who
have done slave labor,

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less able and less well prepared
than I. Rose Marie in the rye

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fields of Saxony, her father
in the camps of Moldavia

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and the Crimea.

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All cooks and
housekeepers herded

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to the gaunt field of torture.

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Hands too bloodied cannot
bear even the touch of air,

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even the touch of love.

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I have a friend
whose grandmother

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cut cane with a
machete, and cut and cut

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until one day she snicked
her hand off and took it

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and threw it grandly at the sky.

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Now in September, our
New England mountains

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under a clear sky for which
we're thankful at last,

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begin to glow, maples, beeches,
birches, in their first color.

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I look beyond our famous hay
fields to our famous hills,

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to the notch where the
sunset is beginning.

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Then in the other
direction, eastward,

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where a full new risen
moon like a pale medallion

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hangs in a lavender
cloud beyond the barn.

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My eyes sting with
sweat and loveliness.

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And who is the Christ now?

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Who if not I?

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It must be so.

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My strength is
legion, and I stand

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up high on the wagon
tongue in my whole bones

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to say woe to you,
watch out you sons

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of bitches who would drive
men and women to the fields

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where they can only die."

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[APPLAUSE]

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