My brow is furrowed
and my white-knuckled hands
wring the steering wheel
as I make a mental inventory
of chores awaiting me
at the end of my evening commute:

Pick up the kids.
Bring the little one to the doctor’s–
she’s got an ear infection again.
Use magic to shape a meal from left-overs.
Find the least-wrinkled clothes to wear tomorrow…

Speeding past in my red turbo,
I catch just a glimpse of him
on his sputtering and dilapidated tractor,
wheels turning at a walking pace.
It must be forty years old.
He must be seventy.

His face is ploughed through with age,
though the lines are not as straight
as those of his plantation.
His cloudy eyes peer through the bottle-ends
of his dark-rimmed glasses.
His knotted fingers, twisted vines,
rest gently on the wheel
and let the clunky old machine drive itself
between the familiar fields
of its past, present and future.

And even though he flashes
through my line of vision
for only a moment,
I am sure that the crescent
between his ruddy cheeks
is contentment.

I take my foot off the pedal
and slow to a walking pace.