PACING
On the first day of August I taste
My first ear of garden-fresh corn.
Not a single sweet kernel is wasted
And soon the whole earful is gone.
But with tears in my eyes I recall
A man who, perceptive and slow,
Savored each delicate morsel
As he nibbled his corn row by row.
He split measured logs for our stove,
Swung his ax in unhurried arcs
And moved our canoe with sure strokes
To reach our next campsite by dark.
Now as I hasten my days,
Willing the hours to pass,
I long for his deliberate pace
And the will not to live life so fast.
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