you carried on your shoulders
a lifetime of experience,
of unexpected joy and
unspeakable pain

ten children and a
tobacco farm,
kept out of trouble
because of you

you were up before
the sun,
caring for the animals,
preparing equipment

while we slept, deeply,
caught up in dreams
that had little to do
with bringing 
the tobacco in

your wife,
my mother,
would make breakfast,
waking us with
our noses

you often came in
as we were finishing,
a cooling plate of
food waiting for you
on the countertop

you would 
sip coffee,
take a few bites,
then head back out

most of us
would stumble outside
over the next hour or so,
though some of the girls
would stay inside,
on pretense of helping
mother clean up

the boys would, eventually,
start helping with
minor chores until,
at lunch, we would all 
stop and pray
and eat and you
would assign to each of us
some bit of work for the day

teaching us,
without words,
that you, as
the bringer
of all we had, were 
also setting an example,
preparing us to be
bringers
of our own