...Still learning the ways of the new little SONY camera,  I took the pictures today.

The poem is from remembering when my Father trusted me to ride one of his mules and lead three others from one corral to another ten miles away.  I was ten.

My Father Was a Man Who Knew About Roads

I am the boy riding on the big mule

leading three other smaller ones

passing one September cotton field after another

skirting stands of second growth softwood timber

following relentlessly the dusty Arkansas road

through time and space

to get from then to now.

The road is the thing.

You either know it or you don’t that a road goes on and on beyond

wherever it is you get on or off a mule.

My Father knew the journey was longer

than the ten miles I went that day.

My Mother didn’t know

and was anxious until she had me home again.

She saw all roads ad coming.

My Father saw them all as going.

I remember the way he stood and watched me

climb onto the oak stump to mount the mule.

My Father was a man who knew about roads.