Of Grief and Thistle

The shovel hit the hard baked red clay,
And only disturbed the yellow star thistle.
The rock below me bothered Grandpa,
Bothered enough to force me up at five,
Before sunrise break to dig it up.
I resisted with the groans of youth,
But leather belt’s force is compelling.
Standing in Levis in Gold Rush country,
I toil in the same untameable ground.
Crack goes the shovel as it sparks rock,
Pick axe, water, shovel — an orchestra,
A chorus of misery for a rock,
A rock that has done nothing major,
Only created a bump for a lawn mower.
The sun seems to be rising fast now,
As I feel the sweat rolling over my eyelids.
I dig, but the rock seems to grow —
Bigger, bigger, and bigger still.
Under direction of pain himself,
Tall, tan, in a white undershirt,
Gold necklace that matches a few teeth,
Crisp jeans and a white cowboy hat.
We loved him, but feared all the same.
He stands a man beaten by life's force.

First his sister and home in a fire,
Then mother lost to quick disease,
Then father a year later by accident —
Eleven orphaned, with mouths to feed.

The sun beat on us as our mound grew.
Excavated clay exposes a boulder.
I look up at his eyes and back again;
I see no surrender staring back at me.
The work looks impossible, yet we dig,
Deeper and deeper, fighting every inch,
As the noonday sun casts away all shade,
Leaving us open to nature's force.
Our pool in the back glistening, alluring,
Like a prisoner staring through the bars
Of incarceration's soul-cracking captivity.
A verbal assault redirects my attention,
Back to the impossibility of that man.

As a boy, orphaned with five siblings,
Alone takes a new meaning — so bleak,
Until maternal aunt arrives to town.
A roaring train leaves behind memories,
As it departs the land of the sun.
New city on the tuna-filled sea,
He grows into a man, tall and strong,
Exactly what Uncle Sam came to call.
One moment digging foundation's trench,
The next gathering the dead and wounded
On the fields of a faraway European land.
More death than any boy should know,
Even a boy well acquainted with grief.
March, march goes the USO commando;
News will arrive soon, his brother lost
In the mountains of the South Pacific.
March, march goes the USO commando.

We dig and we dig, three feet deep or more,
Still no sight of the end of this stone,
Still no break in the man that directs us,
The chorus of pick axe, shovel, and hoe
Against rocky soil is an ominous sound,
Until the melody comes a sudden stop.
The bottom of the rock now exposed,
I smile and look up; he smiles back,
A mustache and gold tooth grin.
After war, a man knows no home, they say,
But did he ever have one to begin with?
Trapped somewhere between life past
And the proven unknown of life present,
To find comfort would be surely earned,
But life has not taught him that.
Marriage comes, kids come, work calls,
He does the things he should — he is tough,
He parents tough, and his push relentless
To the kids of his Logan Heights home.
Pain he brings less than that he knew,
Grief being his oldest companion.
In time a baby arrives unannounced —
White as a cloud, blue eyes, innocent,
Abandoned by a girl of Cedar Rapids
As she scurried away to forget anew.
They kept the baby safe, as their own,
That this baby would get a gift —
From a man who lost a mom too soon,
To a boy who didn't have one to start.

We pushed on that stone with force,
In unison with leverage of tools;
Rope and vehicles pulled until it gave.
To move the unmovable — a miracle.
For a moment my mind was moved,
Away from the blisters and soreness,
To a place of pride and achievement.
Under the direction of our leader,
The man who welcomed the pain,
A nemesis he has always known,
A fight he always took on.
Soon we were all in the pool, splashing.
My Dad now home from work,
They sit on the back deck laughing —
Two boys from grief and heartache,
Forged by life's sculpting inferno,
The men who wouldn't give in.

Nicholas Campos October 2025