RANCHER

Dank and gray dawns this chill day
as I shrug into my coat of plaid.
Winter has come here to stay,
the trees about all bare and sad.

The ice storm of a day ago
demands I check the pasture fence
lest cattle find it down and go
to where the woods grow wild and dense.

I'll begin here atop the hill
and stiffly mount my ATV
then swallow an arthritis pill.
Years have at last caught up with me.

So i ride the line instead of walk
as I did in younger years,
old legs not equal to time's stalk.
The engine groans as I shift gears.

Far off the noise disrupts a deer
whose white flag fades into the gloom
long before I might draw near.
He's safe from any hunter's doom.

Where the field and woodlands mate
a tree lies newly felled by ice
near the old and sagging gate.
It missed the fence, a roll of dice.

Ere long I've finished up my task
and moved a few limbs off the wire
then turn toward home so as to bask
before the warming of hearth's fire.