Classic Poem

It's the mixture of peasantry
makes him so slow.
He waggles his head
before he speaks,
like a cow
before she crops.
He bends to the habit
of dragging his feet up under,
like a measuring-worm:
Some of his forefathers,
stooped over books,
ruled short straight lines
under two rows of figures
to keep their thin savings
from sifting to the floor.
Should you strike him with a question
he'll blink twice or thrice
and roll his head about,
like an owl in the pin-pricks
of a dawn it cannot see.
There is mighty little flesh
about his bones,
no gusto in his stride:
He seems to wait
for the blow behind
that will drive him
another step forward—
forward to what?
There is no land,
no house, no barn,
he has ever owned;
he sits uncomfortable
on chairs
you might invite him to:
If you did
he'd keep his hat in hand
against the moment
when some silent pause
for which he hearkens
bids him move on—
move on where?
It doesn't matter.
He has learned
to shrug his shoulders,
so he'll shrug his shoulders now:
Caterpillars do it
when they're halted by a stick.
Is there a sky overhead?—
a hope worth flying to?
Birds may know about it,
but it's birds
that birds descend from.