Issue Thirty-Eight - Summer 2021

Bobcat*

By Carlton Holte

After you have driven a lot of farm tractors
and a Cat D-8 so ancient that
the pony motor started with a pull rope
and was so persnickety in cold weather
that you wondered if the diesel
would ever turn over, you’d think
a Bobcat wouldn’t be that exciting.

But if you have always loved
digging and plowing and planting
and ended up off the farm,
living in houses with lots so small
you couldn’t justify even a riding mower,
let alone anything with a blade or bucket,
you do a little dreaming.

As in building a BIG shed
just behind the dream house
on the lakeshore lot.
In addition to the Bobcat,
the shed will hold
all the tools and hardware I might need
to make or fix things,
the garden tractor, the riding mower,
a few classic cars to restore.

Some people may not understand
how necessary a Bobcat is
for dream-house living,
so here’s a partial list:
	grading the road and the lot;
	breaking ground for the garden;
	moving big rocks;
	creating paths through the woods;
	clearing the drive when it snows.

I expect I’ll think of more
when the dream becomes reality
and the plans are done.
Soon, I hope.

——-
* Author’s Note: My college roommate,
now an implement dealer in Iowa,
says I’m supposed to call it a “skid-steer.”
Fine, if he sells me one wholesale.

Copyright 2021 Holte

C. T. Holte was born in Minnesota before color TV; grew up playing under bridges and in cornfields; went to lots of school; has had gigs as teacher, editor, and less wordy things. His poetry has appeared in places like Words, California Quarterly, Survival (Poets Speak, vol. 5), The Raven’s Perch, Songs of Eretz, The Daily Drunk, Origami Poems Project, and Pensive, and has been hung from trees to celebrate the Rio Grande Bosque.

All work by