The hay has just been stacked

in neat yellow bricks like some complex

puzzle that needs to be solved.
The shed’s full, it sits alone out there

in the stark yellow paddock – pathetic edifice

waiting to be torched or blown away.
But it’s got Escher written all over it

so there’s a sense of the infinite.

Though early summer storms
can be pretty savage around here.

Lightning-struck trees along the roadsides

are testament to this. Dad reckons
we’d better get straight to it. Covering

the stack with blue plastic sheeting

and staking it deep in the ground.
But school’s just finished and next

year it’ll be university in the city.

Art history. But none of this landscape
stuff – give me Jeff Koons fucking

Cicciolina, those fleshy cybernauts

without a field or ear of wheat
in sight. So it’s hard to get motivated

and Dad tells me I’m not too big

for a clip under the ear. I wonder
if he’s joking but get out there

with my brothers and get stuck into it.

I tell them about Far from
The Madding Crowd and work up a sweat

thinking about Cicciolina. And how stylish

it would be to have a film version
with Koons instead of Alan Bates.

But keeping Julie Christie as

Bathsheba Everdene. Gross!
The blue plastic flaps viciously

as the wind lifts. It cracks in our faces.

It catches my youngest brother
and slices his cheek. The blood

spray-paints the hay. He keeps

at it, swearing at the top of his voice.
Lightning highlights the installation

and for a dreadfull moment

we seem to be furiously adrift
in the vast ocean of the paddock.

Over the Hills where the storm’s dark eye

dilates. The rain drives hard
and I forget about everything. Finally

the hay is wrapped. Christo appears

in my head and I keep him there.