The Wheel

SGH Las Vegas NM May 2019

There were just enough wheels on this rig.

When he came back after mowing it drove funny.

He took a look and one of the two small trailing wheels was gone
along with the supporting bar on the right side.

She hopped in and they drove the truck over the marks of the day’s mowing
straining eyes to find the part somewhere in the evening stubble.
Cactus, grass, thorny weeds, clods and hollows, — no wheel, no green metal rod.

Next day they did it again. No wheel.

_____

Outside the farm door stand two rangy old Russian Olives.
On each, a branch, dead a long time, but still attached.

_____

She is holding her hand like a salute to block the evening sun.

How big is it here.. how many acres of lovingly nurtured grassland?
To grab the fine dust and hold it against the wide acres. To feed the grass
to itself. And in the parching summer to see it lie safe against searing wind,
persistently blowing the moisture out of every molecule of the green.

____

The small battle of man against wasteland on this farm still drones on
somewhere on these late afternoon stretches. The truck somewhere singing weakly against the jet roar of wind sifting itself through the sage new leaves of Russian Olive, and whistling fierce through those dry, dead limbs.

Who will find that wheel?

The man? His heirs? Some beast foraging the last of the grass on that field in
a decade or so? Will the green be dust. The herd be history? The history be only one man’s story, maybe remembered by a grandchild? Will anyone listen?