If I told you of a Donkey Cart

If I told you everything I know

about a donkey cart,

from its rusty iron brackets

and worn wooden planks

to its old wooden wheels

with hand hewn spokes

and why the brake lever attaches

to the cart and not the axle,

and how the springs on the seat

this old fat men sits on

squeak every time we roll

through a gutted piece of road,

and how the boxes in the back

rattle and jump and yet

the donkey pulls us all,

though on the steeper stretches

I have to get down and walk,

until we hit the one spot so steep,

I lean in and push to keep

my little beast from rolling back.

If I told you how the leather harness

frayed and the metal rings where it joins

around the head shine with the smooth wornness

from an age older than this donkey,

 though not older than me,

if I told you these things,

and more, you would grow weary

from the listening,

and want to know about the path,

who carved it into the earth

and where we were going that day,

and what was in those boxes

 that cracked and jangled as we rode.

You might ask after the donkey,

like you really cared,

as if you knew his mother

from some time ago.

But I would tell you the sky was blue

 with only a few scattered clouds

and the sun shone down on my dirty straw hat

 and to tell you neither the donkey nor I

failed to return and the wheels

on the cart still can go round.