More than Words

I learned a lot that afternoon...
me, his beloved grandson...
as he drew me close – squeezed
my hand. Insisted I listen hard,
for he’d secrets to tell...should
he breathe his last...this ‘man
of the land’. And yet, in truth,
so much I already knew, way
before that day came, albeit,
too soon.

His was always my favourite
kind of country...that forehead –
furrowed like those corduroy
fields he farmed, kept ever lush
by good, honest sweat; his hands
told me, more than eloquently,
what a hoe could do; that a trowel
can plant a garden in the soul,
as well as the soil...

Those weathered cheeks,
with their troughs and peaks
eroded by the wind, and eyes
that burned like beacons
in the night, having wept,
both in sorrow, seeing pests
or drought devour a year’s crop...
and with joy the next, at a bumper
yield, in full knowledge, God
bestows gifts on those who sow
with tender touch, rather than
a rough one.

Possessions – all he owned,
could be so easily passed on...
a carthorse, a ploughshare,
and a scythe, but it had to be
in the blood to sense the way
the wind would blow tomorrow,
and when chairs around a table
start to squeak, it is of rain
they speak.