(When all else fails go back to your roots.)

Remember when we were kids,
sand shovels clutched in our dirty fists
as we dug under the old maple stump
that stood rotten near the front porch.
Pa was gonna give us each a round dollar
if we got it loose enough for him to move.
He never told us it had a taproot that went
clear to China, maybe even the North Pole.

Summer, as old Sol beat down
on our tow-heads, we dug so slow
our grandchildren might've finished the job.
Winter, we picked at the ground
with ice axes when it was froze stiff
and there was more snow to move than dirt.
Fall, we dug when given the time,
but much of the season was spent
at harvest, hog-killing and canning.

Spring, we made headway.  Once the earth
partly thawed, we hauled hunks of dirt
out of that hole until we nearly wore
the wheels off the old Tonka dumper
Buddy gave us when he got old enough
for real trucks, not toy. Absent from the dig
only long enough to help plant beans
and hoe, as the years passed by we made
real headway, some help given by uncles
and cousins to cut away the more troublesome roots.

Eventually, we finished enough so a good pull
with a spavin tractor could hank out the roots.
I was 10 and a three, four months, you almost 9.
Pa had left the previous summer, no letter left
or received from him since.

The cartwheels left with him. Ma paid
us in pennies  and nickels whenever she
could save a few coins  from egg sales,
laundry, and bottle returns.

Where ever Pa is, I hope it's on the end of short shovel.


Dec Byron Sacre at: http://gardawg.homestead.com/gardawg.html... Writer's
Hood at http://www.writershood.com/... Poets for Peace.... ¡Poemas sí, balas
no!