Not That Hard

Mom and Dad had nothing when they first met

Save kind and steady hearts and no regrets

Mom compared hard work to picking cotton,

from experience she’d never forgotten

Dad learned strategy from plowing a mule

Where straight rows required a fixed and settled rule

Born into depression, brushed their teeth with sticks,

They learned to use an outhouse before the age of six

When Mary and Gordon endured Hitler’s blitz

Mom and Dad lost siblings to accidents

Three funerals in two years, so fast

The torch now almost fully passed

I hold these loved ones in highest regard

My life—I now see—is not that hard