WORK 

FROM DAWN TO DUSK 

Poem for Today - Tuesday - October 21, 2014

THE MULE

Row after row

Com leaves broke their spines

On my shoulders.

I leaned my life

Against harness.

I drew it through

Fields, down trails,

In timbered darkness.

The corn leaves

Then turned brown.

I dragged the logs away

On washed-out roads,

And I became afraid.

I tried the ground for failure

With my feet.

I did not trust

The very earth

Which kept me from falling.

I found no treachery,

No pitfall; just  sun, time,

Dust, and at last the night.

© Boynton Merrill, Jr.