The Old Farmer

For the zest for life he has not lost the drive Many droughts and hard Seasons he has had to survive His straggly hair white as new fallen snow The passing of time has left him walking slow. Five times a grandfather thanks to his sole offspring his son Who this year in February turned forty one A builder he lives in the suburbs with his school going children and wife Rural living and farming not his sort of life. Last Summer the old farmer's wife passed away He lives on his own in the farm-house today She was sixty nine one year younger than he Their forty one years of marriage was one of harmony. In his early sevenities the years on him beginning to tell The three hundred acres farm will be his son's for to sell But he intends to live in his farm house and die there as a very old man And to tend to his sheep and his cattle for as long as he can.