Vox Populi
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Sean Sexton: Final
Monday again.
What does it hold? The world’s a mess and we’ve
nothing to do but go out and check for new calves—
born over the weekend—as one might tend an arbor,
trim deadwood, gather the ripe fruit, and turn to see
a shining orchard on the way out. Life in the close lens
of time, without angst, retrospect, and the reckon of loss.
Perhaps we need but this early sky to soften our eyes.
The broken-legged bull will be slaughtered today—an
end to his struggle if nothing else. Yet we spoke at length
with the butcher upon the closing gates—
How we wanted our roasts and steaks: grind the chuck
and round, save his tongue and liver if it’s pretty.
Oh yes—he replied—I’ll take care of them for you—
I always do.
How strange to set this all in motion with a word—to
stake my heart on one more beautiful cruel morning.
~~~~~
Sean Sexton was born and raised on his family’s Treasure Hammock Ranch and divides his time between writing, painting, and managing a 700-acre cow-calf and seed stock operation. His publications include Portals: Poems (Press 53).
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Thank you all for your responses to my poem this day! I so relish being here as a reader and writer, and return every day to be enriched by all of you in one way or another! My thanks especially to Michael for whom all of this, I’m certain is a labor of love!
Again, I can’t thank you enough!
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Thanks, Sean. You are a valued member of our community.
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Beautiful and I’m crying anyway.
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A fine poem, Sean!
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Beautiful, Sean. All the suffering creatures.
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Today I am a coward. I have not watched the movie. I could not dwell on the poem. Maybe tomorrow or the day after that. I know there is beauty, but I feel it would be like touching a deep and fresh burn and today I am still hiding from the world.
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Hide as long as you need to, my friend. We’ll be here when you get back.
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Take care of yourself, then help the other passengers
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Ours IS a beautiful, cruel world, isn’t it? And our place, as poets, is to show the world this cruel beauty-full-ness. And, Sean, how humbly and beauty-fully you continue to do this.
“How strange to set this all in motion with a word…”
(The first word setting this all and this poem on motion being “Final”!)
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Reminded me of the Firstborn nations when they were hunting bison: how they almost asked the god-given animal for forgiveness. But it’s to me also a differenciation between the big, anonymous mess of a badly run world and the ordered sadness of a private moment where kindness envelopes necessity.
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‘…where kindness envelopes necessity’ — a beautiful clause. Thank you.
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Rosemary:
So beautifully said!
Thankyou!
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A memorial of a particular time and place. I marvel at Sean Sexton’s deft re-creation of a day-in-the-life, with its intricacies, its life and death.
Cattle, blue sky, active mind, a ranch’s beautifully cruel rhythms tuned into words. Bravo for the depth of the telling. I learned much from this poem
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The poem is an elegy for a dear friend. It reminds me of the ancient tradition of the hunter thanking the animal for feeding his family.
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Yes, hadn’t thought of it as an elegy, but yes. And out on the factory-style turkey farms of Minnesota there is little thanks made to those white-feathered millions. If we eat one at Thanksgiving, we thank God or our version of spirit, but I’ve never heard the turkey or even the farmer thanked. Though the Dakota and Ojibwe Natives did thank each deer for getting the people through the dark winters! Hats off to Mr. Sexton and his wounded bull.
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Thankyou so much my friend!
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