Howard, Elizabeth

The Rendering

1. The November cold snap sent us
2. over the swinging bridge to fetch
3. Granddad for hog killing, a long
4.  
5. walk past two farms, through woods,
6. cornfield, pasture, though the path
7. was just across the creek, most
8.  
9. of it within sound of grunting
10. hogs, screeching grindstone,
11. shouts and laughter of men heating
12.  
13. water, loading rifles. At the second
14. house, a dog came out, snapping,
15. unnatural. Mad dog, we told Granddad.
16.  
17. No dog in sight as we passed
18. the house a second time, he named
19. our fright kid fancies. We boiled,
20.  
21. scraped, hacked, ground; he teased.
22. Seen any mad dogs lately? As he wound
23. home after the day of slaughter,
24.  
25. the dog came at him, serious now
26. in its madness, chased him up a tree.
27. Mad dog, he yelled. Bring your gun.
28.  
29. Old man fancies, we said. Safe
30. on the other side of madness, we
31. watched the dog run like a greyhound,
32.  
33. back and forth across the creek bottom,
34. startling killdeer and crawdad,
35. until the same rifle that had killed
36.  
37. the hogs stopped him. Creek water
38. set him running, Dad said. At dinner,
39. we blessed the sausage, sharp
40.  
41. with sage, too hot with cayenne,
42. blessed the rifle which had
43. saved that cantankerous old man.