The Magnificent Seven

----I stood in awe as land beneath me trembled
and waited where the furrow-horse would draw my father’s plough,
----to watch the finest working team assembled
erupt in bold precision on the green and chocolate brow.

----Eight bodies glistened brightly under tension;
with traces taut, their massive pistons drove the mouldboard on.
----I stepped aside in trepid apprehension
and passed the midday nosebags up, as eyes of liquid shone….

----….that scene from yesteryear is sadly burning;
an adult now, my thankless task awaits me in the shade
----of red-gum; seven left won’t be returning –
old veterans, who’ll shuffle as they make their last parade.

----With dry and dusty harness from the stable,
I walk the mile to slip their headgear on for one last time.
----Five more the team must plod – I pray they’re able –
a distance they’d have swallowed, had they walked it in their prime.

----Behind me on their tragic trek they stumble
and pass the heap of ashes where some twenty months before,
----old Harry dragged their honest mate and humble,
his death the last surrender, for we had a team no more.

----We pensioned off those faithful, ageing horses
to pasture out their final days, so easy at the time,
----but found ourselves at odds with other forces;
a lingering and painful death was far the harsher crime.

----They lift their heads and look toward the stables,
where father and grandfather swear the years they spent were best;
----blue ribbons on the walls of teamster fables,
a place of warmth and harmony, of energy at rest.

----Now watching their retreat in silent witness,
the cold blue-metal Fordson stands in passive victory.
----They had its measure while they passed the fitness,
but time became their nemesis, to snatch supremacy.

----It tears at me to see these legends falter,
their idle days and ageing made them limping casualties;
----high-steppers during working days in halter,
their nostrils flared and blowing, as they challenged soil and breeze.

----The schoolhouse to our right has stopped my dreaming;
ahead a railway loading ramp reminds me why I’m here.
----An engine waits, its boiler boxes steaming;
the horses are unsettled and they toss their heads in fear.

----I walk them in and stand there looking, checking
and gently stroke their outstretched heads with loving words and pride.
----Old Carb is close beside me on the decking;
I slide an arm around his neck – he taught the boy to ride.

----The whistle blows and wheels are slowly turning;
with shoo, shoo, shoo and hiss of steam, a farm tradition ends.
----I watch them disappear, my stomach churning
and shed a tear for noble hearts of seven, more-than-friends…

----…I like to think they’re grazing now in Heaven;
my father wouldn’t cash the cheque for lifetime servants sold.
----He passed it on, in memory of seven,
donated to our local home where human friends grow old

Source:

http://www.abpa.org.au/Files/poetry_2009_Max_Merckenschlager.html

The selection of this poem was based on the creative way it represents farming life and the way it has changed since the increase in machinery. The poem was also the winner of the 2009 Australian Bush Poet’s Association writing competition hosted by North Pine Bush Poets which is entered by local poets and is open to themes and structures of choice. Winning this award as a bush poem also identifies its link to this preoccupation of the anthology.

Structurally the author uses an ABAB rhyming scheme to create rhythm for the reader. This furthermore reflects the gait of the horses as they plough the field in stanza one and the “slowly turning” wheels of the train in the second last stanza. The poem is also sequential and shows the lapsing of time between stanzas.

The poem is multifaceted in its representation of farming life and the impact it has on a reader. Firstly, the persona who narrates the poem in first person begins as a child in stanza one and would watch the “father’s plough” as “land beneath… trembled”, is “an adult” in stanza three and a father by the end of the poem. This life-cycle shows the way that the character perceived the working team of horses and their role on the farm. This also conveys how farming is a way of life for families across generations as the persona reflects on “father and grandfather” and also his “boy”.

The second element of faring life is shown through “the magnificent seven”, the team of working horses that to the farming family were “seven, more than friends”. This relationship between farmer and horse is represented as the animals are personified as “old veterans, who’ll shuffle as they make their last parade”. This allusion to war veterans shows the respect the farmer has for the once “finest working team” who made him “step… aside in trepid apprehension” as a child. Respect for the horses is also shown in the final stanza where the father “wouldn’t cash the cheque for lifetime servants sold” and instead “passed it on in memory of seven”. Moreover in the last line of the poem, the use of “human friends” suggests that indeed the “magnificent seven” were friends to the farmer and his family.

The final theme of the poem is represented as “The Magnificent Seven” are replaced as machinery is available, arguably after the industrial revolution. Comparison is made between horse and machine by the author through the metaphor in the second stanza “with traces taut, their massive pistons drove the mouldboard on”. This conveys the time when the drive of the “working team” was the engine of the plough. In the eighth stanza however, the horses are tormented “watching their retreat in silent witness,/the cold blue-metal Fordson stands in passive victory”, as the tractor ploughs the field. The change brought about by the industrialisation of farming is furthermore represented in the tenth stanza as ironically, the remaining members of the “magnificent seven” are taken away by “An engine… its boiler boxes steaming”.