When The Universe Gives You A Sign

I already had a subject for today's post after cogitating upon a question my eclectic brain presented at 3:04 a.m. this morning. I was still planning on that until the universe gave me a sign that it was time to work that idea which has been on the back burner for a year or more.

Not too surprisingly, the hint came from today's M-W word of the day: knackered "an adjective mostly used informally in British English to mean: very tired or exhausted". Well, most days I am pretty knackered by afternoon but that isn't what I had in mind.

I was thinking of the much older noun, knacker, which originally referred to a harness or saddle maker and then to a buyer of animals no longer able to do farm work - like a team of horses. 

For that is what I have wanted to write, a poem about how my Dad might have felt when he had to sell the team that he had worked with for so many years. He had graduated to a tractor and other machinery but still kept the horses around. I remember leading one of them, the 'hay horse' to pull the bundles of hay up into the hay mow. Out and back, out and back, until the hay was stowed safely away.

This picture was taken before the knacker came to take Rex and Dolly away. I was old enough to understand that meant they were going to slaughter. I was used to the cattle and pigs being killed for food, but not horses. It was upsetting and whether Dad planned it or not, they were taken away while we were in school so we wouldn't have to see them go. 

And I remember the name of the knacker, a neighbor who I always thought of as being more dignified and prominent than the average farmer; one who held some authority like president of the Farm Bureau or something. Not the slovenly, unkempt type I imagined a knacker to be. Once again I should query my older brother for his memories of the man.

Before the Knacker Came

He hung the harnesses on the pegs

Put hay in the mangers 

And oats in the feed boxes 

Currycombed their hides

Gave a few last pats along their sides

Turned to thoughts of all the years

Whether in sun, rain or snow 

How this faithful team kept going

And for a man who never cried

Wiped tears from his eyes.