Rare Earth Poem by James Mills

Cane straight at eighty.
Years yet to dig
your careful bean rows.
To plant seed
in rich, dark earth,
and stand spade-sharp at twilight
planning danders with cronies
to the well on Betsy's Road.

McGreevey died pushing seventy eight.

Times change.

No daily shave,
the dog unwalked.
Garden harvests came and went.
You spent it staring
into comfortless coals
complaining of a chill
in bones too old to till.
Unwilling.

Weeds shouldered through
the last bean rows
of your rare earth.