Draw Bar

Ferguson,
as if one of our own pioneers,
made the best Draw Bar to go
between linkage arms.
Untarnishable.

They made better steel
back then.
The draw bar is said
to have been made in the
primitive but true carboning of those
wood-charcoal smelters !
where the oak carbons
and elemental traces
get in to give a special
resilient temper to the metal.

They were:
Hard without
being too brittle,
Flexible without
too much spring.

The drawbar grew mercury-black,
shiny with use.
It never rusted -though it
wasn't galvanised.

The draw bar was
indestructible,
invincible.
No lift would bend it.
It would bear up
under any load.

No shock
would crack it
and it had nine
press-drawn bolt-holes
to choose from between its tempered ends
like a wiried man with
as many skills.

A drawbar could
lay about the farmyard unused
for half a year and then be as good
for use the minute you needed it
-if you could find it that is,
the hunt was on, did you see it last
in the spud-box heap, or out in the rain
with the trailers?
Whatever! as you left it, it will be
reliable once its found.
Like a land-man's will
forged of nine-year hopes
laid on the double.

It was the one thing among
a thousand tools
and implements around the farm
which never broke down, never
gave any trouble, more willing
than house bearers,
truer than the land...

Like a gospel fig tree,
like your own limb, like you
expected your own self to be,
a drawbar had holes at both ends
for lynch pins
or home-made wire-clips,
it would bear,
(once you'd pinned it down)
and bear, and what's more
bear more than your own shoulders,
which always surprises.

A drawbar would do
the job perfectly,
draw any load you thought up
in your need
whichever way you
lead it to go.


2 December 1996 © Wayne David Knoll
Goulburn, NSW