It's very hot, already. Every farmer in central Maine is haying, along with their gaggle of teenage laborers and middle-aged brothers-in-law and elderly fathers who have to be boosted onto the tractor . . . not to mention their get-in-the-way younger kids who ride on the hay wagon or steer the pickup into groundhog holes.

Here's a bit from Hayden Carruth's "Emergency Haying," which is a great, great poem. It's a few pages long, and you should read all of it.

We mow, rake, bale, and draw the bales

to the barn, these late, half-green,

improperly cured bales; some weigh 150 pounds

or more, yet must be lugged by the twine

across the field, tossed on the load, and then

at the barn unloaded on the conveyor

and distributed in the loft. I help--

I, the desk-servant, word-worker--

and hold up my end pretty well too; but God,

the close of day, how I fall down then. . . .

I've already mowed grass this morning, shoving the push mower up and down the hill and sweating like a marathoner. Now, after cold water and restorative coffee, I'm off to pick beans. Oh, we desk-servants, we hold up our ends pretty well; but God, the close of day, how we fall down then.