I’ve taken on with some Tongans

Laying down cement.

And I like it. Long hours and 

Heavy work in the wet Missouri heat.

And when we’re done, we eat and eat.

There is a kind-heartedness about them,

A purity and generosity that the world is missing.

And it’s all about the family, the family.

The ties of Father Abraham.

And the branches have reached over the wall to me,

As if, for this little stint of my life, I am one of them,

Adopted in the very center of the love

Of the Old Patriarch himself.