;o)
Life’s a Prospect
He were old as dirt itself, his mule too
ageless paragons of western ‘go and do’
Plodders along the back roads of life
away from the common run of strife
Oh weary the so many miles and the years
spend wandering amid silences and fears
Dry camps and wt seasons took their toll
and all away from mankind’s easy dole
Old Jennifer, a mule with lasting calm still
lugs their tools across hot desert and treed hill
patient as Job himself would have had to be
there in the depths of the so silent sandy sea
Zeke, a wonder of human endurance in a man
gnarled akin to driftwood, he seeks as he can
Ever onward in the path he seeks before him
though now his strength is less, his vision dim
These two are like ancient spirits, seeking release
haunts of the hills for a bit to give them peace
Plodding ever on, seemingly eternal on the whole
yet one asks, what does it take to fill their souls
Pan a bit of color here, mine a bit of low-grade there
Never making more then the next grubstake fair
Yet, out they go again, hopes and dreams in place
carrying them far from the yoke of the human race
Whipcord and sinew, bone and muscle, going old
moving them along the trail and over the hill’s fold
Passing from our view, they go ever and ever on
and who can tell if they’ll see many more dawns
In the end, one might have to ask to be fair
if they in the end had, more then pain and care
Did they find the rhythm of life we all seek so
did they have the wisdom to really even know