Nothing More or Less

he had been just a man
and he died just a man
                no statues erected in his honor.
                no multitudes weeping at his grave.
                no eulogy befitting the man he was given.

                in fact no words were said.
                none even in a whisper.
                   just silence.
                the kind observed when a man has died.
        he had been a simple man,
        adoring all that his forefathers 
        had set before him to adore.
        he had loved the sun, the country air,
        the simple, natural life.
        he had known nothing else to love.
        he had lived his life
        as it was to be lived.
        five children he'd had,
        four strong sturdy sons
        to help with that which must be done
        and carry on his name, and one daughter.
        so he had lived his life
        as he'd felt he should,
        not bowing down to the hardships.
        one son had died but
                tragedies are to be expected.
        and when his wife's death
        followed his son's
                he had understood 
                for that was the way it was to be.
        his life had continued in the simple way.
                struggling while learning about it,
                suffering as much from ignorance
                as from what life had had in store for him.
        and he died one day
        while out harvesting the crop.
                his children in grief
        just said it was to be,
        suffering in the simple way
        that simple folk do.
        so they laid him in the cold dark earth with nothing
but a wooden cross set above his grave.
and when he was set down in peace a small part of each of them too
was laid down to rest.  they all knew at the site, at the lowering 
of the body and the covering of the grave,
                        with no need of words,
                        that he had been just a man,
                                        nothing more
                                
                                                or less

                                        12/29/69