I’m posting this tonight for Joe. 

Lament for My Brother on a Hayrake

Cool with the touch of autumn, waters break

Out of the pump at dawn to clear my eyes;

I leave the house, to face the sacrifice

Of hay, the drag and death.

By day, by moon, I have seen my younger brother wipe his face

And heave his arm on steel. He need not pass

Under the blade to waste his life and break;

The hunching of the body is enough

To violate his bones. That bright machine

Strips the revolving earth of more than grass;

Powered by the fire of summer, bundles fall

Folded to die beside a burlap shroud;

And so my broken brother may lie mown

Out of the wasted fallows, winds return,

Corn-yellow tassels of his hair blow down,

The summer bear him sideways in a bale

Of darkness to October’s mow of cloud. 

 

                 — James Wright