Rope

Kwame Dawes

To hold our lives together on the cart

before the slow march after midnight

along back-roads, blind-driving, the scent

of the exhaust making us drowsy（昏昏欲睡的，沉积的）, every

shadow in the fields a threat of sorts;

we use rope thick as two thumbs side by side,

pulling hard on the knot to keep our

parts from falling by the wayside. We

have kept this rope supple with oil,

constant use, never letting it stay

idle long enough to rot. It is hard

to look at the coiled silence of our

strongest rope and not think of what

it has held: the heavy grey-green

battered bucket knocking the stone

sides of the wall, top water spilling

back down, this cherished substance,

carrying our lives; the mare, white

and grey, plodding（沉重地走，辛勤工作） across the wide

open field at dusk, her head heavy

with labor, the rope a caress

against her neck, the way she

turns towards a gentle tug, we

hold the balance of our need

in thin rope; the dead weight

of Junebug at dawn, his skin still

steaming, his beautiful black skin

catching the morning light, tender

among the leaves, how we found him

there, his neck stretched, the wrapping

of several yards of taut rope

around the drooping branch; where

we found it, how we undid the knot,

let his body down into our

arms then carried it like a soldier's

flag, bearing it behind the cart

shaking along with his swollen body.

This ordinary rope, this gift

we cannot forget, this remembrance

of what we have lost. Someday,

a soul will come out of the fields

to claim it, and then we will know.