Relationship

By Helen Harrington

Old Jacob never gave to nature. He fought it every inch of the way!
He clipped the branches of his neighbor’s tree
that overhung his fence and if the day
was dark and rainy, he would storm at it
as if his storming could make sunlight come.
Why, I’ve even seen him turn to twit
a rainbow because it came too soon! The
sum and substance of him was: he could not wait.
He wanted fencerows clean and rivers straight,
and if they would not go so, railed at fate.

Young Alfred was not like that. To him earth
was an enchanting, good, but wilful child,
and if it disobeyed or saw no worth
in his ideas for it, he was mild
in reprimand. He figured it might know
a thing or two he didn’t! He’d be blest
if he’d uproot wild strawberries! and his furrow
was often crooked where he’d spared a nest.
Old Jacob grew quite brittle at the end
because he never learned to give or bend.
Young Alfred died with even wind his friend.

(1954)