I'm Learning Something This Morning

(I wonder if I need the last stanza or the last two stanzas.)   ?????


I'm Learning Something This Morning

The newspaper tells about a hay shortage.
Says that every rancher in the south
is losing money on horses, every day
of every month.

Imagine it.  To wake up knowing you
can't afford sweet feed or hay.  To know
not letting them go means going into
deeper debt, a deeper hole, to know it
while rubbing a nose comforting you.

It's the American way, holding on and
losing a little each moment.  I wonder if
prayers help the fusspots and worryguts,
those wanting the impossible, but
unwilling to let go. 

Letting go is difficult.  An art not taught.
Modeled by few, but not taught.
Perhaps the trick is finding a model,
but that probably means looking beyond
family. 

Those shoveling stalls and riding horses
may be taking the family toward ruin
but not be able to speak of it.  More incredible,
I suppose, is letting go of what comforts
and comes every time they're called.

Pat

If this were Collins, he'd make a setting in the title (I'm learning something new), the first sentence would tell what that was (hay shortage), and then he'd spin that topic.

Title (setting and dramatic situation)

Stanzas:

1 - expansion of dramatic situation in 3rd person
2 - talk to reader in 2nd person  (not sure what "them" is
3 - comment on culture in 1st person
4 - moral lesson spoken to reader by persona?
5 - return to hay? in 1st person

I keep trying to determine if the hay is something that is obtained or denied.  The first stanza indicates shortage and the last seems to indicate its use ruins families.

For me, the energy resides in stanza 4. 

Hope others can be more help.  Thanks Pat for understanding.

Pat,... Interesting setting... might be a stretch going from shortage of hay to this "human condition"... Love the poem!... I take it the "nose" is a horses nose... and who is comforting whom?  Is there a word missing in that end line?...  I like the power in S.#4.  Worth an entire poem for sure.  A little mending in the persona area might be in order as I'm not sure about the pronoun usage.   As I finish this statement I'm reaching for my copy of "PUSH MOUNTAIN ROAD" again.   I find this poem there.  Dewell

would definitely fit Push Mountain Road.  : )  Much to be mended on this poem.  It's pretty raw.  Good feedback.   Just home from Harrison, minus three fun kiddos.  Nice to come home to poetry and critiques.

Pat,  The overall thought is a picture of worry and woe of sorts whitted down to horse feed.  We worry about the mundane sometimes and you show us that.  You do over step your bounds with "It is the American way, holding on and losing a little each moment."  I can find that on my own without you telling me.  I think if you drop that sentence, "the fusspots and worryguts" will carry me to that conclusion. (love those words) 
I like the simplicity of the simple subject that carries a profound thought.  This is good.

The others have found the bits that worry me.  I'm finding the worrisome bits small and more easily remedied than some of the paper clip tangles we get into on the forum. 

I too want a bit of clean up in the persona aisle.  I also want the title to grab me and chunk me right into the subject.  I like the simplicity of this language.  I like this poem.  It's almost there, Pat!