You head out into dry fieldsle
spedeza woody and rasping
against your boots brome
gone brown and desiccated
even field cedars wizened
in the Extreme drought
a level four just short of
Exceptional according to
three-piece-suited meteorologists
in air-conditioned studios
unlike sweating farmers
combining wheat baling straw
laboring over row crops
watering truck gardens
hoeing by hand and selling
deer ravaged sweet corn out
of their red paneled trucks

you push through deadfalls
downed in the last blow to gain
an equally dry meadow already
purpling with what should be September
ironweed then take the deer track through
the fence gap and follow it to the back
where the junkyard shimmers
rusting cars and trucks slowly stripped
of engines axles wheels power trains
and just as slowly settling into
dusty hardpan Queen Anne’s Lace
waving like a prom queen above
chassis propped atop each other

heat rising from metal in waves
as you mop sweat and ponder
why you set out in the first place
why you’re ready to push forward
through this rusting jungle skirting
snake and thistle to gain creek moving
even in July, from this point north.

Point No Point by Richard Hugo
Opening line: “Even in July, from this point north.”

A Top to Bottom poem.