Recycling the Shrine

He needed a place to remove his muck boots
before entering the house, somewhere
to plant his behind, without standing on
his head; so Dad haunted farm auctions
and scoured old country homesteads, waded
in waist-high weeds, and woke the
custodial grasshoppers, always clutching
a spade, in case he'd rustle up a rattler,
scavenging for pieces of old farm implements;
a rusted gear here, the cast iron tractor seats
and old cream separator bases there, muttering
to himself, "Glad we got rid of those milk cows,
back then;" rustling up bits and pieces of the
past with a screw driver and pair of pliers.

Back home in his dusty shop, he'd lay the body
parts out on the floor, like Dr. Frankenstein in
his lab, with a foot here, a seat there, until he'd
welded this odd creation together into a solid,
one-of-a-kind, heavy stool.

They sit on my patio, now, just three rustic
thrones to judiciously tuck the left-right of your
back side; the flange juts up like a saddle horn.
They are irrepressible, like the bib-overall clad
farmer butts that bumped tirelessly, minus
padding or springs, with Massey Harris through
the green seas of corn and wheat, the vast
acres of hay, soybeans and milo with McCormack
Deering across the Great Plains, and honed
Allis Chalmers to an earthy patina; our leisure
forged by Farmall and their blood, sweat and tears.