His Daily Pack

Come here and let me tell you about this man
Who always crossed his t’s and dotted his i’s
In what he said or thought or tried to do,
Convinced his addiction to order was enterprise.

He carefully drew to scale each map he planned
To account for a world that ran on a wobbly wheel,
The roads he surveyed all lay straight and true,
His facts were obedient, taught like a dog to heel.

But the grain he harvested always invited rats,
And his purebred heifer wasted from scours when
He doctored her feed, he promised his wife to attend
Her funeral at half-past nine and the clock struck ten.

One day a spark from a trash pile leveled his barn.
I’m through with farming, he yelled. He never came back.
It’s sad when you stop to think how the rules he made
Kept breaking like straps when he shouldered his daily pack.