This glorious morning, 4-4-11! The ever present herd of deer browsed below us again this morning, a flock of geese flew low over the top of them, a coyote skulked in the far corner of the field, and eagles are nesting nearby. The Heart River runs high and fast and a tinge of green starts to color the ground. Spring comes!The roads and streets are rough and breaking up. It made me think of an activity we would often do on the farm: grade our gravel road with the township's road patrol. I snapped the above picture in Georgia. Dad always called it the road patrol, so when I saw this one I scanned the frame of the machine, and sure enough, the name "Road Patrol" was prominently etched into it.
Some time ago I wrote this poem and published it in one of my chapbooks.
The Road Patrol
The Greene Township road grader,
scaled small enough for horses
to pull, sat rusting in trees
until someone searched it out
and hooked a tractor to it.
Here's where I enter the scene:
driver, pulling straight-away
while Dad stood on rear platform
working blade angle and depth
to smooth the washboard bumps
that banged and chattered a car's
chassis so hard your teeth shook
and made you wish for a rain
to fall and soften the road bed
so that the little grader
blade could grab some bite and cut
the rough grade to a smooth shave.
The times cried, "Do-it-yourself
if you want to change your world.
No one will do it for you!"
