Life Grinding Through a Mill

I often watched him tirelessly sifting Grains of native corn in a rusty mill- Those arms a kinetic flush, quicker than July’s heat, as if glazed limestone rubbed A wavy mane blown by summer’s tossed air : Perhaps, I have imagined him laboring- Muscular taut and bronzed by scorched hours His gait languidly aloof fetching water Across the pond, a lonesome vignette, This image cast-off like a bag of disused husk Far out behind, steep as the upturned leaves... Eyes doleful flickering on late noon’s hardened toil. While upon paddles, a man’s life seemed to rile Where golden-rod turned to nickel's work, That down old chutes rolled musky sweat of flesh: I have beheld him amid dusk’s aftermath Of sadness roaming there in faint overalls, From his glimpses, the mill of pit and death And each lily I clutched for him wilted, sagging- For in my own aloneness, I dared not meet him. Gristmill Contest for Craig Cornish 6/3/2018