"An Awakening While Moving Sprinkler Pipe"

Poem of the Day, Tuesday, November 28, 2023

"An Awakening While Moving Sprinkler Pipe"

I remember the day well,
moving sprinkler pipe in potatoes,
standing there on that rocky knoll,
looking over the pond filled
with muddy runoff water,

croaking frogs and swimming pollywogs,
my muddy chaps strapped on
to my legs, mud on my face
and arms, a pipe at my feet,
and me swatting dancing flies,

thinking ever so out loud
that this was definitely not a life
that I ever wanted to live.
I wanted to live a better life,
less dirty and not in the sun

and mud. Maybe college
was a better choice,
a choice I could make
when others around me
in other field, from other places

could not make at this time
or any time, based on where
they came from, the papers
they did not have, like I did
somewhere in my house

in mother’s drawer, safe
until I needed them for something.
I decided right there
on the knoll, mud splattered
everywhere, bugs buzzing

around my head thinking
we were friends when
we were definitely not,
in the heat of the day
that I was going to do

something different
with my life, and no one
was going to tell me
differently. I finished
my quarter-mile line,

refreshed, resolute,
as I watched the pipe movers
in the next field
doing what they had to do
to survive.