the worth of man

under cover

Don Barrett commented on Adult “W.O.M.” Poems.
in response to davidlharrison:

October poem
I’ believe you can tell a mans’ worth.
Not by his bank account, his vehicle or his girth.
We all have a purpose when we are born on this earth; of that I have no doubt.
How old we are when that revaluation becomes clear

for some it happens quickly ;others never learn or care.

they forge ahead year after year.
I’m getting to my point rest assured, actually three points.

The points I speak of are the tines of my really old pitch fork.
I purchased this particular tool at a farm sale in the seventies and like an old fool I paid cash money for this item that will work you hard and if misused can do great harm.

The three tines were shiny and the handle worn smooth. Fit my hands perfect too

no splinters or abuse from its many years of use.
I kept and used that fork myself for over forty years.

The handle finally snapped in the center on-one cold day. while pitching hay to my two old horses.
I tried to repair using a metal piece of pipe but the balance was off

it didn’t feel right.
I decided to get a new one but it had four tines and the handle just didn’t fit my hands.
So now I’m using two entirely different tools changing back and forth and I’ve decided I finally know what my destiny is. Why I was put here. I’m wealthy for sure I now own not one but two pitchforks.

they neither fit quite right.
But now I can work from morning til night pitching hay to my horses

til I get it just right.

Keeps the animals fed.

Gives me great exercise.

Plus I’m breaking that new pitchfork in for someone else to use after I’m gone.
Your purpose in life doesn’t have to be huge.
Dollars don’t measure a mans true worth.

Sometimes it’s what you do with your time on this old earth.

have patience and indulgence toward the people…

 

This is what you shall do…

 

 

This is what you shall do


by Walt Whitman
“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
 
“This is what you shall do…” by Walt Whitman, from the preface of Leaves of Grass. Public domain.
Jefferson turned down a request to appear at the 50th anniversary celebration in Washington, D.C.; it was the last letter he ever wrote, and in it he expressed his hope for the Declaration of Independence:
“May it be to the world, what I believe it will be … the signal of arousing men to burst the chains … and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. […] All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. … For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”