nicerthanlife

The sky is captured in his eyes, clear and blue. The weather etched smile is honest. The slender face says sixty; it lies. It is that and half again. Knobby hands sun baked and brown peek out from ragged gloves. They seem part of the old split locust post where they are resting; one of the row of soldiers that keep watch on their field and its occupants. The smile broadens as I approach. I help stretch the wire. His archaic dialect fills the road with cows and snow and the yankees that his grandparents saw marching. The hours pass pulled by the mule he plowed with as a boy. He mentions his wife they'd been marri