MUD

The mud sucks at your feet 
With every step
You slide and stagger like
One soaked in ‘shine

The soil is gooey for a foot or so down
And if the weather doesn’t 
Turn cold and freeze the
Mud
We’ll be up to our knees in this sloppy mud

This is country in the winter time
City folk don’t see this scene
In their pretty, nostalgic, pictures of home
To them the earth is as firm as concrete
Sidewalks
But that’s true only at plow time in the country

But while it sucks and slides and slops
And mud splatters all over your clothes
I’m truly sorry for those
Who don’t know the earth in this
Mood
For this is the way the winter days
Prepare the earth to bring forth food

I like to go tromping, now that I’m older,
Through a muddy lane
To feel the tug of the
Soupy mud
As it tries to suck off
My shoes
In vain

Why I like this experience now
I can’t understand
Because as I recall
It was situation to dread
When as a lad
It was an experience I had
Too often
In a wintry land

The difference I suppose
Lies in the knowledge
That these days
Of necessity
Requiring muddy treks
Are no longer a part of life’s daily feats
But I like to remember 
The struggle of earlier days
When often I would have quit

But life was so arranged 
That I couldn’t 
And now
I wouldn’t

While in the days of youth
The sloppy mud
Was my major foe
So
Today I like to go out
And conquer the mud
It’s so easily done
Because now that I’m old
The trials I know
Are not so handily won

I’m glad that life is so designed
That what we feared at an early time
With an obstacle so benign
As mud
Here we learn to overcome
The agents of defeat
So as a man
We know we can
Run
In spite of 
Mud