NED'S WAR

I used to know a man named Ned
from hunting years on his homestead
two hundred acres and a bit
he had inherited all of it

What fields there were were strewn with stones
as white and thick as old bleached bones
his father farmed it years ago
a hard place to make crops grow

So Ned set all the fields in pines
planting right up next to kudzu vines
which grew thick along the old field road
a dusting ground for bird and toad

Then each year when the air grew warm
to keep young trees from creeping harm
armed with herbicide and hoe
off to the kudzu war he'd go

He'd fight the rustling questing vine
as long and strong as baling twine
to keep them from the little trees
which trembled in the summer breeze

In the heat he'd chop and spray
green vines which grew a foot per day
in hopes of gaining a stalemate
against a foe he'd come to hate

How many years I can't recall
he finally tired and sold it all
the kudzu, trees and stony land
against which he'd made his stand

The land he'd lived on most his life
usually without a wife
he left behind and moved away
I've not seen him since that day