THE WEEDS grow ‘round a tractor, like an island in the field

With bird nests on the motor and briars crawlin’ up the wheels

and a windmill watches over . . . a rusty water tank

where hoof-prints stomped a crater where the cattle used to

drink

and the sunlight through the barn-boards, cuts slices in the dust

where bridles hang on bent up nails, that long began to rust

You know, the old home place seems smaller now than then

I smell the neighbor’s fireplace in the wind

Paints’ a peelin’, shutters’ bangin’

Screen door hangin’ by a thread

Poor old oak tree, he’s barely standin’. . .

                                         . . . He don’t even know he’s dead

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