GRIEF

                    As for man, his days are as grass….
                                                     --Psalm 103:15

Screen door banged in his wake.
Head cocked earthward and feet splayed,
he walked to the barn for the work.

The mower bar, all shark power, moved
fitfully as he slammed it to the floor
and pulled from the long body a string of teeth.

Rivets fell from blows of his hammer
and chisel. Sparks showered from the grind-
stone but appeared to fly from his head.

He honed knife-edges and raked them over
a strop—his calloused palm upward and open—
to a sharpness beyond what was needed.

He told me that a man’s legs were clipped
at the ankles with teeth like these, that he walked
with two canes, head bent over the earth.