First, I had to explain an oat field
and how it is green, then gold—
waves of it. like wheat, but with
a different kind of head, and how the
oat binder cut down the ripened oats
with its sideways sharp teeth and let
it fall flat onto the canvas platform,
then carried it along under the wooden
wings turning like paddle wheels on
a river boat, gathered it into bundles,
and then—through some crafty sleight of 
its mechanical hand—tied up the bundle
and dropped it back to the stubbled field.

Then I had to explain how we came
walking through the field to set the bundles
together like this: three pairs, head to head,
and one pulled over the top, like a hat
(we called this “shocking the oats”), and then
I had to tell about the threshing machine,
how it was as big as houses and how
it lumbered down the hill behind the county’s
oldest tractor like a tamed behemoth,
and how its handlers—Harold and Elmer—
were missing parts of their arms and legs.

But I didn’t tell about the wagons, the
pitchforks, and the tractor standing back,
attached to a long belt that turned wheels that
turned the wheels on the threshing machine,
and if you touched that belt it was like
touching fire, and I didn’t say anything
about the pickup trucks waiting to receive
the oats and carry it back to the granaries.
But I did talk about the straw, as it fell
like Rapunzel’s hair into a yellow heap,
but then I had to explain straw how it
was beautifully flat and smooth (not stiff
and scratchy like hay, not something cows ate)
and how we shook it out under the cows
as they swished their tails in the warm barn,
while the snow gathered in drifts all around.

And I explained about the men in the
threshing crew and how they worked from
farm to farm, dawn to dusk, only stopping
at noon to wash their blackened hands
and devour plates filled with meat and mashed
potatoes, gravy, dressing, three kinds of
vegetables, stacks of bread with butter and
jam, pickles, applesauce, and then (of
course) pie and coffee. I suppose I mentioned
(again) how I helped in the fields until
I had to help in the kitchen and how
I hated being the girl who filled the
water glasses and served the pies, staying
behind to do the dishes beforeI could
go back to the fields, but it wasn’t worth 
complaining now to someone who never
saw an oat binder—or a threshing machine
or a horse in harness—and who couldn’t
tell a handful of alfalfa from oat straw
and who probably never climbed a silo.

I couldn’t decide if I felt lucky or not.
What I really wanted to tell you, I said,
was how we used to play on the oat binder
at the back of the machine shed and that
the light fell into place, like ripened oats.
What I really wanted to tell you was that
the oat binder was beautiful as
a ship under sail, that it took its sweet
time with the field and left all of the gold
for us. What I really wanted to say
is that I know (yes) how lucky I’ve been.