ODD COMPANIONS

Each year when summer heat abates
and frost turns forests red and gold
I know a familiar friend awaits,
a white haired guy who's beyond old.

He often joins me in some task,
like feeding cows or cutting wood,
he's there regardless if I ask.
Sometimes we walk the woods and brood.

Or we might sit before a warm hearth fire
and talk about the simple life,
the peace which all just men desire,
the precious love of a good wife.

We both have moved around a bit,
he a good bit more than I,
and both have formed the bad habit
of staring at cloud scudded sky.

He'a an adopted son of Yankee Land
and in writing he might tend toward terse
in the manner of New England
when he wrote immortal verse.

and I am born of the deep south,
a mere scribbler at writing poetry,
who tends too much to run my mouth
when writing of this hill country.

We are a most unlikely pair,
him white-haired, spare; me bald and stout,
me from down here, him way up there.
What ever do we talk about?

Children,flowers,streams. old trees,
satisfaction of a job well done,
the bracing nip of a chill breeze,
the rise and set of winter's sun.

One day I'll really meet my friend
who's here although he has long crossed
and when my time here comes to end
I'll compare notes with Robert Frost.