Reclaim

It must look silly from the sky,
The farms that fit like children’s blocks.
Lonely strips of trees that line
The bits of earth we think we buy
Serve perches for buteo hawks,
Describe my neighbour’s field and mine.
For years I went to seed these fields
And tried to take from all the edge
A little more field from the trees,
Thinking of one thing – my yields.
Soon the trees were just a hedge,
The standing forest buckled to its knees.
Those silly younger years I spent
Ripping the iron into roots
To change the grass from wild to tame,
To sow the seed of this lament.
Look, now the tender aspen shoots
Attempt their former glory to reclaim.

The Cause of and Solution to the World’s Problems

I have a boot that squeaks,
It has for weeks.
And everywhere I walk
It squeaks and squeaks.
I’ve tried to guise my gait
To make its talk
Take a different trait,
Maybe a squawk.
But survey what’s around,
Just take a peek,
The instances abound
Of things that squeak.
Most in fact are men,
A lying lot,
Squeaking from above
A Windsor knot,
Showing once again
How good they're not.
Whether he be a dove
Or be a hawk,
The next leader to speak
I’ll throw a rock,
And try to change his squeak
Into a squawk.

A Walk Forestalled

Oh, you barbed wire
Hurry and rust.
Hold in your cow
Or kid now if you must,
But before I am dead,
To my blackest of dust,
Please will you expire?
Yes? Slowly combust;
Yours more to the red
In the spectrums of dust.
So what's this wish for:
Well, a wanderer’s need
Is not road-like; more
Like a grass prairie fire,
Wind-set in destination.
We neither pay heed
To silly strung wire
Pre- or post-oxidation.

Distraction

The spring sun thaws December snow,
Brings on the bin-yard mud. It plugs
My old truck’s nub-worn tire lugs.
The moment comes when we both know
That though it tries, it will not go.

I’m happy for the sunny day
Which carries on the warm breeze hope.
This year I’ll surely shape the slope
Of all my bin-yards so next May
I’ll need not curse a wasted day.