Wisdom in the shade

 Wisdom was found in the shade  Long spells of learning silence  Wordless hours I wouldn't trade  For all the words since.....my father and I never spoke much, we had a kind of silent understanding about one another, an acceptance. In the course of his ministry, most of his time was spent in talking and once home, he did not talk much. We always said if we wanted to know anything, just invite a church member over and we would hear all we wanted.  Most of my learning from my father came from working beside him as from a little boy he let me do much of the work. I used to groan when he would hand me the post hole diggers or the sugar cane machete, as all through his life up until his seventies he could easily outwork me.  We would sit in these old metal chairs in the blueberry patch beside the old Cracker house in the shade and listen. Ever so often he would sing lowly a hymn or play upon a harmonica, but mostly we would listen and observe.  It was never due to laziness for we usually were sitting after doing some tiring work and just basking in the satisfaction of a job completed . As I said in the poem, I would not trade these moments for all the words since.