Not fit enough to wander the wild woods
or separate my wouldn’ts from my shoulds,
what can I say?
Not spry enough to scamper on a deck
or fend a tall sloop from a leeward wreck,
I steer my way.
No longer lean or lithe enough to climb
a groaning glacier out in Mountain Time,
here I shall stay.
So: on the closely-cropped alfalfa fields
that my Creator in his bounty yields
I stack my hay.
—Timothy Murphy
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
All Labor Is Labor
The Elizabethan commonplace comparing creative production to pregnancy and birth is baked into the English language. We…
Asters
The asters bloom amid late-summer heat,Low-lying stars that will not linger longAnd bend their sprays beneath the…
To Live Fittingly
Why do the humanities face such a hostile climate? In part it’s because academics have excluded ordinary,…
