A Rusted Shotgun

When into winter autumn pails,
bound ailing in dementing gales.
'Twould madden him who hews the wood,
who thins the beets and sorts the spud.

Too old he’d be to hunch and plod
this callused swathe, this cursed sod.
Near broke his will, he bare got by,
through lack and lean cut plough and scythe.

When he, who of a mighty clan,
would tough it out, then young a man.
Who’d neither let nor would he stall;
with grit and grunt he gave his all.

He cleared his lot of rock and bone,
with bruise and welt built walls of stone.
No flock or herd for nowt to graze,
he dug but drills and early graves.

He bought the lie; what promised lands?
To eke out what? But empty hands.
For what to sweat, for what to toil?
For nowt but blight and seeds to spoil.

He stood the storms of howling rage
but could not bear the mind’s rampage.
For death he longed, that quiet repose;
nowt here but grief and graveyard crows.

When age gives not a tinker's curse,
howl hell, the reaper's horse and hearse.
Could damn and turn a man insane
if sheathed not from yester-pain.

The aches of loss, 'twas all he had,
the scars of hardships, riven mad.
Who'd cuss and kick each stone and weed,
so little gained, so much to bleed.

The buckshot blew off most his head.

Where he escaped was where he bled.

Past many moons and all was found,

a rusted shotgun on the ground.