I saw a photograph of you
As a girl of seventeen
I thought about myself back then
If we had met, how would it have been?

Youthful lives in flux
The future just a haze
Steered by chance, fate, luck
To make it through the maze

So many couples set up home
Promise not to stray
Then exercise their right to roam
And throw it all away

I guess we'll never know
But here we are today
This is how we are right now
And how we want to stay

It's time to write a poem
Don't know what about
First we need a subject
Nothing's coming out

The river isn't flowing
Nothing in the store
Read other people's poems
Pushing at the door

Raid the bank of memories
To supplement the day
Senses at the ready
Like a bird of prey

Then a spark, a glint, a flash
Clutch it with both fists
Take it home, examine it
Pull it all to bits

Someone saw our horse plough
A relic from a different age
"I used one just like that"
I turn to him amazed

I ask our neighbour, over eighty
Yes, on my father's farm
Hitched up to a pair of hosses
Hard work did me no harm

One foot on the land, one foot in the furrow
Eleven miles an acre, up and down you'd go
An acre a day good going, if the land was light
You do that all day, bor
You'll lay still at night !

Granny swings her glasses round
              Celebrates
    ( She was a cheerleader )

five skims of a stone
    toss a pebble down the well
          ripples and echoes

They say the grass is greener
On the other side
She left the one who loves her
To give some guy a ride

Mike oh Mike you're just too nice
J something in your brain you lack
She left him once, twice, thrice
Three times he took her back

Seems you're never happy
By now you should have learnt
It's not the answer flying to another flame
To get your fingers burnt

I hope some day you'll settle
Find happiness for good
In a lasting treasure
I really wish you would

His claim he staked, the mallard drake
Beside a little pond
Two female ducks were round about
They would return anon

He watched me work all morning
A feather he would preen or peck
I reciprocated his respect
And studiously ignored him

He was content until I went
A bit too close for comfort
His head and neck he laid down low
His movements they were slow
As if to bid the executioner
Or will the grass to grow