Little John Creek

There were rows of cattails on Little John Creek

Among the reeds I’d find a fresh quail nest.

I would gather the eggs for the incubator,

This was country living at its best.

There were fresh eggs in the morning,

Pulling weeds both day and night;

Every chore was the hardest work,

Now seen as leisure in current hindsight.

I walked the acres every day,

Testing the charged electric fence…

Thirty years later I moved to an island,

And missed those chores ever since.

I haven’t had a bad life,

Some days I wade in cold sea foam…

Yet the day you hold your own soil,

Imprints the location you call home.