All day making hay, we watched the empty sky.
Summer heat, clinging shirts soaked, powder caked in dust.
Though we worked a Montana field,
I knew when my father said,
"Hurricane weather."
By two or so, a few small clouds, high and innocent,
Were forming to the west; we did not stop to rest;
A field of second cutting hay down,
Windrows of perfect hay
Fed the tireless machines we rode.
By supper time, a line of gray progressed,
Menacing from north to south and moving east.
"Supper'll have to wait, boys," and Dad was right.
We raced the sky and quickly coming night.
Unnatural calm and breathless air held dust above our rows;
We pressed on, knowing that the winds were on their way.
Bright bolts began to stab across the plain;
We guessed the storm was half an hour away.
The race was nearly finished, our baling nearly done,
When lightning struck around us, sure as any gun.
We looked for Dad, and he baled on, so what to do but follow?
But when the rain and hail fell, our work was done.
Laughing as we ran, we piled into a truck;
Let the tractors stand to face the storm alone
As rain and hail poured anger at our bales,
And we, the merry balers, headed home.
My father and my son were in the fields that day.... Dad, in his sixties, and my son eleven. He worked as hard as any man, and I thrill with pride in the remembering.
