At 82, he rises early, hurries to the barn
As fast as he can go, and at his age,
The shambling gait looks like a run.

"Retire?" I asked just once.
"Die in my boots," said he,
"Or hanging in a fence."

"Vacation?" his foolish son inquired.
"Each morning standing at the gate,
To see the sunrise is my vacation!" his reply.

"Rest?" I still must ask.
"I'll sleep when I am dead!"
How many times I've heard this?
I don't know.

I come, a tourist, to the farm I once called home,
The place he never left...will never leave.
Some day we'll find him, hanging in a fence,
Or stuck and cold in a snowy ditch,
Out on the fields or pastures that he loves.

No matter that my mother waits as always,
Looking out at distances,
At some late hour,
Wondering where her man is, and
Holding dinner warming on the stove.

Two lives inseparable in life, but winding down.

Simply Simple Poetry because that was my first ever collective
And that is what I live by
Simple to read, easy to enjoy

Hellopoetry

Though you be many miles away
We'll never be apart
I just reach out my hands
To feel the beating of your heart

I usually sit here into the early hours
Reading poetry
Some I love,
Some I don't enjoy
Don't enjoy simply because hate
Is not a word in my vocabulary
I don't want to read about self mutilation
About ****** alignment
But that's just me
Give me magic, a fairy story
Give me that old man walking down the street
Don't get me wrong
What ever you write has to be good
But I won't always like it

The Pothole Man**

That's what we used to call him
Although I'm sure he had a proper job title
Brown weather beaten face and tar stained hands
Always a greasy old flat cap on his head
Always a shabby old army great coat
To us kids he was very old
In reality probably in his fifties
Anyway
His job was to repair the potholes in about
Ten miles of country roads
He always carried his tools in a wheel barrow
Rake, shovel and a heavy flat bottomed piece of metal
On the end of a stout pole
Every couple of miles there were a few sacks of tarmac
Beside the road
He was meticulous in cleaning out the potholes
Every loose stone, dust removed
Then he'd fill his bucket with tarmac and heat it over
A wood fire
Overfill the hole by a couple of inches and rake it level
It had to be just right, maybe add a bit more
Perhaps shovel some out
Then the heavy metal plate would rise and fall
With a slow steady thump
Beating the tarmac flush with the road surface
He always finished by pouring tar found the edges
Of the new patch
Round holes, square holes, rectangular holes
Holes of all shapes and sizes
To us he was just the pothole man
Now looking back he really took pride in what he did