Spinning Fields of Gold

We put 71 bales of straw up in the barn loft this evening during the last lingering light.  My daughter up top hoisting them in through the loft window, my youngest daughter and I tugging the rope to raise them and my old mother hooking them on with an antique bale hook. Our efforts orchestrated and focused. I loved the dusk and the gold of the straw going through our hands and up through the sparkling air in front of the rich, smoldering-red barn. The spun field hoisted to become necessary and urgent in the bitter air of winter: tossing down these moments, these lofts of prayer, when long down the road from here we sit  in the dark, alone.