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Checks On A Combine Old man wades the weeds
to a distant barn
that houses his machinery.
He wants to combine one more time.
He goes to inspect the rust
and to check the moving parts.
He wonders if ducks have nested
in the tines.
Eighteen acres of soybeans wait.
He needs to harvest them
to pay property taxes.
He needs to beat foraging deer.
With one turn of the key,
the engine starts.
He eases across bumpy fields
and drainage ditches
to where golden leaves await him.
Eight hundred bushels
and two groundhogs later,
he returns home before nightfall,
hoofprints of deer by the barn.
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