An Imperfect Cure

Oil can on the shelf.
Tools on the wall.
A pile of dirty manuals off to the side.

Broken things. Old things
to keep running
because you are determined
not to toss them.

At a certain point, the truth becomes hard.
There are no parts left
and so, you make your own,

an imperfect cure,
but a cure none the less.

About this poem

My grandfather was a farmer in Surry County, Virginia. A product of the depression, he didn’t let many things go. He had some tractors that even 40 years ago belonged in an museum. He kept them running with ingenuity and determination. I am sure some of his repairs were strange and odd, not at all factory- authorized, But they ran.

We are all kind of like that as we age. Physically and emotionally, we break and we patch and sometimes the results are imperfect.

But we run on.

Tom