Tractor - Elias C. Ahumada

The poem, “Tractor”, is a family portrait of a boy and his father on a summer night. The father works as a tractor operator.

Somewhere

remote along the Friant-Kern Canal,

a green tractor ploughed

across a three-acre cotton field.

A summer night.

Hydraulic oil, diesel fuel, scent of must.

A young boy sat coiled

around his father’s feet,

fingertips embracing the creases

of his father’s worn-in leather boots.

Curious,

the boy looked up to the universe

and searched for his father’s face.

A warm night.

The tractor dragged its bent teeth

and pulled with perilous rage.

Turned the soil, spun weeds,

and trembled with hysteria.

The father’s hands were covered in earth

and flat against a polished moon.

His sombrero bare and saturated in dirt,

wrinkles on his blue guayabera.

But the father’s face was lost,

somewhere.

Elias C. Ahumada is a bilingual writer from Delano, California. His journalism and photography work can be found at The Renegade Rip (Bakersfield College) – where he contributed as reporter, photographer, and editor. He holds a BA in Multimedia Photojournalism from Columbia College Chicago and an MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing from DePaul University. Most recently, he served as a Graduate Student Editor at DePaul University’s annual anthology, DePaul’s Blue Book: Best American High School Writing. Elias currently resides in Chicago with his dog, Link.