2021-06-15
Got Me A Barrow Full of Deadwood

GOT ME A BARROW FULL OF DEADWOOD
(Under The Unforgiving Son)

Got me a barrow full of deadwood and I’m ready to tumble.

The flies, they be pecking, much like the girls in the coop, paying my futile swatting little heed.

A bead of sweat caresses my cheek, blessing this damned work, under the unforgiving son.

I did what I did, for I did what I thought I should. If I could, I might do it all over again, for unless you change my childhood, my disposition remains all the same.

There’s no shame in discipline, much like accepting some of us are not so sane.

Unforgiving son burns nonetheless and allthemore, the scorched earth only stretches as far as he can see; a brighter horizon might come for us with experience, and a lot more empathy.

Back to work, I lay my burden out upon the land, finding solace in all that is grand and magnificent and challenging. Mother Nature is much more forgiving than human nature; perhaps that is why Emerson, Thoreau and Muir were inclined to walk alone.

And like Jesus walking across the water, lizards scamper about, gliding across the desert sand, skirting about me - as if I didn’t know.

I find a desert flower graced by wood, and I almost want to let her be, but wood is good and giving. hence, I steal her branches to forge a path less taken.

Perhaps that is why the one eyed steer stared, looking at me; glaring, gloating at my insensitivity.

Perhaps that is why I must forgive myself and forge ahead; much as I forgave my father and he forgave his. As he recently confessed, “I hadn’t done this before, what did I know?”

What did I know?