Muse and Mint

Chapter 71: JUST MUD

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About This Book

A varied collection of short lyrical poems that observes nature and rural life, using seasonal imagery—sap, snow, rivers, cherries—and simple domestic scenes to reflect on change, beauty, and small joys. Sections shift between fireside recollections, sentimental and philosophical meditations, homiletic and religious pieces, and light humor, blending devotional songlike verses with moral aphorisms and affectionate memory. The voice moves between wistful and buoyant moods, finding consolation and ethical insight in commonplace experiences, while concise stanzas and vivid images emphasize mood and moral reflection rather than a continuous narrative.

JUST MUD

What’s this live stuff you call a boy

Just in the plastic stage

And fairly oozing with the joy

Of youth’s unmoulded age?

What’s this to fashion into form

Of early blade or bud

Or fruit with life or color warm?

Why say, just mud!

What’s Summer’s golden harvest-yield

That ripens into grain,

The bloom of orchard, wood or field

So riotous with gain?

What’s this comes trooping with the grace

Of man-and-woman-hood

From out the muck of yesterdays?

Why say, just mud!

What’s yonder statue borne aloft

By noble edifice,

Which passers-by beholding oft

Forget immortal is

Of living deed and living art

(Now clay, once flesh and blood)

Both growing from a humble start?

Why say, just mud!