Pounding Nails in the Mud

 

I was passing the park

on my way to the bar

when I saw the man,

down in the smelly

mud of a park path.

 

It had rained a short time

before, soaking the ground

and turning the ground into

a stinky mush.  The man was

on his hands and knees in the muck.

 

He had a hammer in his hand,

and was raising it up over his

head and was pounding it into

the muddy ground. He was hammering

nails into the mud.

 

“What are you doing,” I asked him.

He didn’t look up from his work.

He didn’t acknowledge me.

He just continued pounding

nails into the mud.

 

He lined up the nail,

like a skilled carpenter would,

and brought the hammer down hard

onto the head of the nail, driving it

easily in to the mire.

 

He had a whole box of nails

next to him, roofing nails it seemed,

and he just went about his work,

calmly confident in his task of

driving nails into the mud.

 

I watched as he moved through

the mud, skillfully arranging the nails

in a straight line, and slamming down

on them with all the might he could

muster. Each nail easily disappearing.

 

On he went, almost whistling while

he slid along from muddy plot to the next,

driving the nails in, accomplishing nothing.

The nails held nothing. They vanished in

the mud with each hammer thud.

 

When the box of nails was empty,

the man, covered in the filth of his

endeavors, looked back to take stock

of his labors, to perhaps marvel at his

ingenuity.

 

All his work was for naught,

he scratched at the mud flies whizzing

around his face and rubbed mud on his chin,

he looked up at me, gesturing back,

with a muddy hand, confused exasperation in his eyes.

 

“All that effort, all that work,” he said,

“And nothing to show for it.”

He dropped the hammer in to the mud.

Got up and started toward the cement path.

“Maybe tomorrow I’ll get it right,” he muttered.