hitching to the mission…<\/p>\n
grabbed a seat in a truck on the interstate…
\nnext to half-baled hay near a loose tailgate…
\na farmer drove heading to market in town…
\nwith a brood of young peeps and a sleepy old hound…<\/p>\n
tall mountains behind me stood shrinking in size…
\nand so did my squint as full sun hit these eyes…
\ngust from the roadside rushed stealing the wind…
\nand reached out to rip off the hat i sat in…<\/p>\n
worn treads below me squeezed into a roll…
\ntheir uneven squeaks strumming into a lull…
\nchirps from late chicks huddled under a tarp…
\ndrew up like music from stray muffled harps…<\/p>\n
branches on bushes brushed close to one side…
\ntouching bright shadows that trailed my ride…
\nhad been on the road for a couple of days…
\nin a few different lanes cruising busy highways…<\/p>\n
was hoping to get to the mission by dark…
\nfor a bath and a cot where new road dust could park…
\na bowl of warm soup would soon comfort this belly…
\nand luck might show up with hard crust under jelly…<\/p>\n
but drool on my lips quickly slipped off in thuds…
\nas tires tripped into a ditch of dried mud…
\njostled and juggled and tossed upside down…
\nthis truckbed of squatters flung onto the ground…<\/p>\n
chirps leaped to squawks in a heap of deep yellow…
\nas i focused my sight for the old farmer fellow…
\na tail stood wagging against my cut hand…
\nand behind it two boots \u2018neath torn cuffs on patched pants…<\/p>\n
the farmer leaned over and asked how i was…
\ni blurted “okay” as i picked myself up…
\nwe glanced at each other and scouted the scene…
\nthen started to round up stirred chicks in between…<\/p>\n
got \u2018em packed in their boxes and back on the road…
\nbut the farmer\u2019s leg hurt so he headed for home…
\nsharp stabs grabbed his foot as he asked me to drive…
\nthen he slid to his right while i took the farside…<\/p>\n
he muttered directions and short stories too…
\nof some high points and low blows his legs scuttered through…
\nin no time at all we pulled into his farm…
\nand onto bare dirt at the door of his barn…<\/p>\n
we uncrated those chicks then he asked me to stay…
\nto help a few days \u2018til his pain wore away…
\ni gave him an answer before i could speak…
\nand that mission would just have to wait for next week…<\/p>\n
soon a plateful and cup soothed my two-day-old hunger…
\nand a few meals later i felt several years younger…
\nmonths passed as the farmer added onto his crew…
\ngiving a couple more hands something useful to do…<\/p>\n
last night after supper the farmer declared…
\nthat thanks to great help this old ranch has been spared…
\nwe talked about missions that start on the road…
\nand how sometimes a hitch is worth more than its load!…<\/p>\n
… \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
hitching to the mission… grabbed a seat in a truck on the interstate… next to half-baled hay near a loose tailgate… a farmer drove heading to market in town… with a brood of young peeps and a sleepy old hound… tall mountains behind me stood shrinking in size… and so did my squint as full […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sallysense.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sallysense.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sallysense.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sallysense.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sallysense.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sallysense.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48,"href":"https:\/\/sallysense.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/48"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sallysense.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sallysense.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sallysense.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}