He assumes that acreage with some caution
upon the death of his father.
This is poem number seven.
I read it, especially for Michael Hogan.
I'm ready now to admit that I failed
at everything, except perhaps at one quick span of crisis.
When I said yes to my dying father
and to his only piece of acreage.
Gifts are not easy to accept not when they nudge you
to the sudden wall of your stubbornness.
But at 30, I lay awake alone dreaming growth.
I had failed at everything.
But when I touched the land again and heard my father's
voice, I saw, but one image.
Not the ponderous pasture, or the unpainted house,
or even the rock, but a single seed.
I said, yes.