Работа на винокурне

РАБОТА НА ВИНОКУРНЕ
Джейк Янг

Прошлым летом я вставал
до рассвета, крался
по дому, всё ещё
наполненному сном,
натягивал рваные джинсы,
запятнанный свитшот,
бейсболку,
истрёпанную от носки,
хватал из холодильника
кофе и обед — и ехал
на юг, в Уотсонвилл,
разгружать виноград
в свете раннего утра.
Весь день я лопатой
засыпал его в гребнеотделитель,
затем — в соковыжималку;
золотистая жидкость
была слаще амброзии.
Я наполнял чаны для брожения,
складывал пустые гребни,
чисто обглоданные,
на компостную кучу,
снова наполнял бак
на вилочном погрузчике, прятал ключи —
и ехал вслед за солнцем,
которое уже зашло,
гонясь за низким сиянием
на горизонте,
пока на небе проступали звёзды —
созвездия,
на которые я едва мог
поднять глаза.

about this poem

“In my twenties, I worked in the Santa Cruz Mountains for a winemaker and fell in love with that world. My last summer in California, before moving to Missouri, I worked the crush for a distiller and helped turn that year’s harvest into wine, and eventually brandy. I found the alchemical transformation itself intoxicating—tasting the fresh juice pressed from the grapes, smelling it ferment in the cellar. What I remember most, though, is the satisfaction of working fourteen- or sixteen-hour days throughout the harvest, and the gratifying weight of exhaustion each night.”
—Jake Young

Jake Young is the author of the poetry collections All I Wanted (Redhawk Publications, 2021); What They Will Say (Finishing Line Press, 2021); and American Oak (Main Street Rag, 2018). He is also the translator of Matilde Ladr;n de Guevara’s poetry collection Desnuda/Naked (Redhawk Publications, 2022), co-translated with Rebecca Pelky. The poetry editor of Chicago Quarterly Review, Young is from Bonny Doon, California, in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Working at the Distillery
Jake Young

Last summer, I rose
before dawn, crept
through the house still
pregnant with sleep,
pulled on tattered jeans, 
a stained sweatshirt,
a baseball cap 
ragged with wear,
grabbed my coffee and lunch
from the fridge, and drove
south to Watsonville
to unload grapes
in the early morning light.
All day, I shoveled them
into the destemmer,
then into the juicer,
the golden liquid
sweeter than ambrosia.
I filled tanks to ferment,
piled the empty stems
picked clean onto
the compost heap,
refilled the tank on the fork-
lift, hid the keys,
and followed the sun
that had already set,
chasing the low glow
at the horizon 
as the stars came out,
constellations
I could hardly raise
my eyes to see.

Copyright © 2026 by Jake Young. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 22, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.