He leans upon his shovel,
tips his hat and wipes his brow.
The heat has sucked his strength plumb gone,
but, 'least there's water now.
More than was this morning,
just a sluggish, muddied pool.
The spring still runs, though slowly,
but, for now, it has to do.

He looks, then, all around him.
Cattle watch with wary gaze.
The grass is curling yellow
'neath the sun's ungodly blaze.
The earth is dry as flour -
Lord, it's only come July!
From foolish, hopeless habit,
he looks at the furnace sky.

There's clouds stacked up like cotton
far away beneath the sun,
but they're only empty promise.
No real moisture comes.
He clamps his dusty hat back on
and sighs with tired despair.
Dear God, when will You send us rain?
It's just so damn' unfair.

His great-grandpa first won this place
from sagebrush, rocks and sand.
His dad's and grand dad's entire lives
were woven in this land.
Someday soon it'd come to him . . .
but what, then, would be left?
For drought and debt and market whims
were bleeding them to death.

He once had left the old home place
to work for other brands.
He'd cowboyed, learned and rambled,
done his best to make a hand.
Then came the time when he'd returned,
content to settle down.
He'd married, just a year ago,
and she, too, loved this ground.

But now she's took a job in town
to help them pay the bills.
The doctors get a goodly chunk;
poor mom is often ill.
They sold the farm a few years back
where once they grew their hay.
It hurt him more'n he'd have thought,
seeing mem'ries hauled away.

He's never cared for farmin' work.
It just ain't in his heart.
But it'd been part of all their lives
and near pulled dad apart.
Tough old man keeps going,
but the son's begun to wonder;
how long of fighting uphill pulls
before the place goes under?

He's lately thought of pulling out,
and building life anew,
instead of wasting his best years
on what looks almost through.
But he can't leave his folks this way.
What if things go wrong?
Then all his life he'd think,
he could have helped, if he weren't gone.

Some would say, it's your own life.
Who says that you can't choose?
Deep inside, dad knows it;
fate decides what's win or loose.
His wife is understanding.
She's behind him either way.
But they neither one can answer,
is it time to go . . . or stay?

~ * ~