Pride is a hard and bitter pill to swallow
having to take back a firm decision
like swearing to be a lifetime vegetarian
or follow the simple life like Thoreau
I said I’d do without machines forever
Dig my fields by spade and cut my fuel
by hand and tote my crops by wheelbarrow
unbothered by machines Never say never
Children grow and shoes and teeth are costly
Time is shorter and my muscles grow weary
Meat seems good chain saws cut more quickly
Thoreau was single the simple life seems hollow
I make excuses as I succumb to progress
but pride is still a bitter pill to swallow
And yet though pride may be a bitter pill
does not mean that I have given up
Today tomorrow I’ll still try to cut
my stove wood with a buck saw and to till
my fields in one manner or another
and hope that woodsmoke clings to my clothing
rich and pungent and that the wind will sing
on my face again over and over
I would hope to keep in my own employ
singing jigs for coins poems for joy
Perhaps I will become a wandering minstrel
pastoral still but restless all quite strange
to me who has roots down that are rural
The only permanence we know is change
Thank you—this is how I’ve always felt this time of year, even as a little child. It only gets stronger.