The Atlantic | October 2001 | Winter Bale

More on poetry from The Atlantic Monthly.

Also by Robert Wrigley:
Highway 12, Just East of Paradise, Idaho (2001)

The Atlantic Monthly | October 2001

Winter Bale

by Robert Wrigley

.....

Hear Robert Wrigley read this poem (in RealAudio)

Not a scent so much as a bouquet
of smells, that stable: old wood, horseflesh,
the sweet round buds of manure;
molasses, oats, leather, hay.

In the ancient bushel basket a nest
of twine, now the red taut plunk of it cut
from the bale, as puffed up
out of the flakes comes dust

from the fields a year before,
and a stiff, sleepy bull snake oozes
across the cold floor and into the stall
where the edgy stallion waits for hay.

What do you think? Discuss this article in Post & Riposte.