The Creative Corner
The Lonely Cedar Fence Post
Once towering cedars, fallen by stout lumberjacks.Then stripped of their bark, with a razor sharp axe.Cut seven feet long, they are roughly hand split,Then are promptly sent, to a tarry creosote pit.Along comes a farmer, needing to build a corral.Treated for days, they’re now ready to sell.Yet dripping and gooey, covered with a black muck,Lifted out of the pit, and loaded onto a truck.It’s a long rough ride, out there to the field.There’s no escaping---their fate has been sealed.A round hole is dug deep, in hard earth and scab rock.Doomed to a grave, oh---if only fence posts could---talk!But---what might they say---one can only surmise.This is what I envision---seen through---their eyes.So what is now penned---you may think it---bizarre!I’m half buried alive, tamped tight with a steel bar.Yes, I’m a wooden fence post, standing so indiscreet.So solemn and silent---like I’m asleep on my feet.The farmer is busy, there’s lots of fence to be built.The swing of a hammer, staples driven in to the hilt.Oh, dreadful pain---from sharp staples---barbed wire!I’ll become weather beat, burned sometimes with fire.In to my knotty flesh, is tacked a no trespassing sign.Though I’ll bleed some pitch, I pretend that I’m fine.The sun it beats down, the fierce winds they blow,I’m saturated with rain, and am dusted with snow.I’m surrounded by thistles, stick cheat grass and sage.And because I was buried, prairies are now a fenced cage.I stand all the day long, all through the dark night,Holding up that barbed wire, stretched oh, so tight.Some of us old fence posts lean, some hold up a gate,Cattles are penned, property lines marked straight.You must think this epistle, is just a little absurd.But one can’t deny, we’re a perch for most every bird!Though I was once a tall cedar, nearly touching the sky,Like all things on earth---I was---destined to---die.We fence posts are obvious, every road is well lined.Yet---you seldom see us, ‘cause quite often you’re blind.So when you take your next drive, open your eyes, look around.You’ll see us poor fence posts, there---trapped in the ground.Arley M. Bischoff
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