Hayfields

His sweat falls. The sun bears down on the two, and they are tired.
He hears the engine of the tractor, smells its diesel, and feels the
hay scratching at his blue jeans with her reedy claws. The sun is
incredibly hot. He throws a towel of ice-cold water on his head and
puts on his bleached hat. Sweat is dripping from his face and down his
tanned arms, which are covered in dried blades of grass. His arms have
scars and his hands have blisters and he cannot rest.

The boy looks at him. Because he is a boy, there is contempt for his
father, but because he is almost a man, there is pride too. The boy
picks up a bale, arms like his fathers. Arms with a permanent tan-arms
lined with blades of bleached grass-arms with leathery skin-arms
baptized in sweat.

The bale rattles the faded oak boards of the trailer, and the boy looks
at the hayfield, and the boy throws another bale on the trailer and the
trailer rattles. And the wind blows and the trailer rattles. Four
rattles follow, and the boy looks at his father and talks, and the
trailer rattles. More rattles floating in the heated wind, fighting
against the hypnotic purr of the tractor until, finally, there are no
more bales to rattle the trailer.

The boy looks across the field and sees the figure of his father
against horizon walking toward his sun-beaten truck. The boy drives the
tractor to the truck, and stumbles onto the white ground. The father
looks at the boy with pride and offers him some water and says, "Too
easy."

"Too easy," returns his son.