Waste Not (or Digging Out)

You really don't know manure
if you haven't dug
out a hog barn at the end of winter;
the manure dried
and packed down to cement-like hardness
two feet deep
you can walk on without any worry.

With forks and picks,
we pried the dried chunks out,
loaded up the cart
that would kick the dark clumps out
when hooked to and pulled by
a tractor.

The manure was hardly smelly,
pretty much like mud.
I'm not saying you had to like it.

The flat truth is
manure nourishes fields
that produce the grass
that cows chew into green cud
and give back as milk.

Also manure.