The Burden (sonnet)
by Ken HarnischI saw you walking on the road to town
Your head was bare of cap, your shoulders ground
Down to their rounded stumps, where troubles lay
Like bundles of straw from the end of days
Each straw a burden in your tangled life
Each day one straw added to the strife
And you, who bore it all, went a mile
More before you noticed me; I smiled;
Two neighbors who had never shared a word
Though living only a fence apart. Absurd!
To think we could know all that much and say
Nothing of it in words from day to day
Two neighbors, strangers who walked to town
Neither asking to take your burden down
08/08/2003