Livestock by Noah Siela

Livestock

Judge told me to find routine
But the Smithfield office on fire is the prettiest thing I’ve seen
Hope the volunteer brigade is at home drunk in bed
Hope Dakota wind keeps the blaze fully fed

What’s it matter if it jumps the creek?
It’d only burn down bare walls and beams
Nobody left just saplings in the kitchen
A basketball shoe, a bible flipped to Galatians

The county used to have 3,000 head
Now it’s 20,000 all computer fed
2000 acres acquired from overseas
Livestock now monitored by autonomous machines

Missouri they blamed Jimmy Scott for the levee
He didn’t do it but his cell’s in Jeff City
But I burnt it all, I’m not wrangling with contrite
Nothing to save here just a fire making light

More songs from Noah Siela can be found on his YouTube channel.

Learn more about Noah on the Contributors page.

(Photo: Compassion Action/flickr.com/ CC BY 2.0)

The 2024 Best in Rural Writing Contest is now underway!

$500 first prize, $200 runner-up. $5 entry fee (with a $10 discount on online writing courses).

Accepting fiction and nonfiction under 6,000 words. To enter, click here.

Deadline: September 30th, 2024

The 2024 Best in Rural Writing Contest is sponsored by The Daily Yonder. The Daily Yonder offers news, analysis and stories from Rural America, free for readers to enjoy. Visit dailyyonder.com to get more great rural stories, or sign up to their newsletter to receive rural reporting directly in your inbox. Alternatively, you can listen and subscribe to their podcast, Rural Remix, wherever you get your podcasts.