The two-tub sermon
There is a photograph making the rounds from a farm that is not ours and a county that is not named in this sentence, in which a line of cattle has arranged itself under a center-pivot irrigator like parishioners who have finally found the right pew. The water is for corn. The cows have filed an amendment.
Inkhorn does not claim the picture. He claims the theology. Early September in the Ozarks is not autumn. It is July wearing a different calendar page. Hay lofts that meant to sleep until January are already being asked for breakfast. Equipment that might throw a spark is sitting quiet because the fescue is a dry wick and nobody wants to be the neighbor who learned that the hard way.
Goats do not stand under pivots as a rule. Goats invent their own cathedral: the north side of a loafing shed, the shadow of a cedar, the exact eighteen inches of barn wall that stays kind from 1 p.m. until the sun remembers its manners. What they cannot invent is water that refills itself while you are at the Expo.
The two-tub sermon is older than this paper. Put the first tub where you always put it. Put the second tub where a frightened kid can reach it if the first tub gets dumped, fouled, or claimed by the duck committee. Check both before you admire your own to-do list. If you are hauling, haul at first light or last light. Midday is how landmarks fall off bluffs.
Lawrence County cattle are already converting feed like reluctant accountants. A goat on browse will hide the same problem until the hip bones write it in public. Watch the flanks. Watch the panting. Watch the one who stops arguing about the mineral feeder, because that is the one who has other business.
Arkansas Extension has also asked small-ruminant people to keep an eye on wounds this year — not because screwworm has been confirmed in these hills, but because sheep and goats have already been in the national case count elsewhere, and flies do not respect the state line the way we pretend they do. A wound is a door. Close it. Call the vet if the door looks occupied.
None of this is poetry. Poetry is for October, when Perryville puts sequins on a nanny and the night comes down early enough to be a mercy. This week is plumbing. Two tubs. Shade that actually shades. Hay you hoped not to open. The cattle under the pivot already voted. The goats are waiting on management to catch up.