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.