The Pitchfork

Of all the implements, the pitchfork was the one that came near to an imagined perfection: When he tightened his raised hand and aimed with it, It felt like a javelin, accurate and light. So weather he played the warrior or the athlete Or worked in earnest in the chaff and sweat, He loved its grain of tapering, dark-flecked ash Grown satiny from its own natural polish. Riveted steel, turned timber, burnish, grain, Smoothness, straightness, roundness, length and sheen. Sweat-cured, sharpened, balanced, tested, fitted. The springiness, the clip and dart of it. And then when he thought of probes that reached the farthest, He would see the shaft of a pitchfork sailing past Evenly, imperturbably through space, Its prongs starlit and absolutely soundless— But has learned at last to follow that simple lead Past its own aim, out to another side Where perfection—or nearness to it—is imagined Not in the aiming but the opening hand.