If a word was the world entire, the boy's word would be conflict..

assaulted by twin pincers, he had his first fight whilst still attached to a woman he would never know..

the boy was awkward..his shape wasn't uniform..his skull had been subject to untrained midwifery...and the price was two scars that scared people..

manhood found the boy years before his age..he became broad from farm work and blended into the changing landscapes of the seasons.

he was not part of nature as such..rather..he was of nature..he bonded with the Earth and at the site of the bonds..he was more than the sum of his parts

he thought himself to tell time by the pitch of birdsong

knew how to breach the skin of the Earth by the call of the curlew

by 21 he was fully formed..as broad as wide..and a pair of hands the fit no store bought glove

his was the strength of hard living..stews and raw milk

of not running from the emptiness of dawn's letter..of standing in the pain and living in it

he found that fleeing a horror only qualified it anew..so he took all pain..let it grow in the bone.. and fruit in experience

never weeding or pruning ..Instead he accepted it..and let it alone

his size preloaded opinion..

heavily bearded now..with a neck hidden by its own development

those who misjudged his good nature for timid reckoning

paid with a life altering sum