Lifting Most Anything Heavy
Out back behind
The machinery shed
Grease rust moldy hay
Dry rotted lumber
Old man and young man
Grandpa taught me how
Together two men may
Lift most anything heavy
I don’t remember what
It was half buried
In sod and cow manure
Something oak or iron
Suddenly useful again
Only that it needed moving
From here to there
One works a pry bar
Beneath an edge and
Raises the levered end
The other pauses then
Lifts the opposite side
It is a courtesy to wait
So no fingers are pinched
A few old men teach this
A few boys remember this
.
David Sapp, writer, artist, and professor, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.
Stone Poetry Quarterly 