Here's to friends in floppy hats,
Who sacrifice Saturdays because they miss
The dirt they dug as children, because they miss
You. They know
Where you came from, remember
The night you slept on their couch,
When everything had been torn from the Earth
And stacked in the back of the truck on the street.
That night, they said, would be sleepless.
Tomorrow worse. But someday
Would be better. Now,
We laugh about the shape we're in, sweating over beers and shovels,
April sunshine painting
The white we have worn on our skin all winter,
The marks the dark has left fading to red, and maybe brown.
It is hard work
To believe I have worked so hard
For this happiness.
But as we take pickaxes to clay on this Spring
Someday, it pays to recall the price
We've paid for it all -- how this soil still only newly turned,
Was bought with so many lessons learned with the help of friends
In floppy hats.
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