Frivolous Quill

~ One adverb too many.

Tag Archives: toil

Physics

27 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by Jared in Poetry, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

childhood, fatherhood, toil, unmetrical

sweating, struggling, we’re lugging
the bin over grass and gravel,
sticks and stones
to the mound of broken trees,

the earth hot and dry like
Hemingway or Steinbeck;
man and boy toiling through
the fading sunlight.

you wait at the edge, eager,
forward and back again as
i shovel mulch and grunt.
your fingers twitch.

dust rises and you cough,
shielding your face
from the grit and sun;
still, you watch

and finally ask, ‘can I?’
of course, though you can’t,
possibly, lift even the blade.
i pass the handle, and you grin.

i wait at the edge, eager,
forward and back again as
you place your hands and grunt,
frowning but not asking for help.

your hands slide forward, seeking
the physics you don’t understand,
and you do, lift. and more, you
shove and lift again,

over your waist, shoulder, head,
blade full by anyone’s measure,
and tip the chips into (mostly)
the bin.

the blade drops with your hands,
clanging on the hard-packed dirt.
you breathe heavy and sigh.
‘I think I’m too little.’

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Tags

bummer cats childhood children creation faith family fatherhood fear flash image longform motherhood mourning nature nostalgia pets race regret science shame snark snippet sorrow toil travel unmetrical vacation whimsy worship

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Frivolous Quill by JS Gilbert is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.frivolousquill.com.

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