I wanted to put a hot tub

On someone else's property.

It would be a slight improvement to the land.

It's a place I go to walk and sit

By a creek where I swim when it is warm,

But it's cold so often,

And I could always use a hot tub.

Now I hear the land owner has died.

They're coming to hold his funeral out here tomorrow.

A man who runs a backhoe's coming today

To dig a big hole for them to place the coffin.

I met the backhoe man at the gate

And tried to persuade him

To make a hole for me,

But one I can enjoy now

When the weather goes south for the winter.

I thought I almost had him convinced

Of the propriety and good of all this,

Til he reached into his back pocket 

And produced a handbill.

On it was printed the deadman's obituary.

"I don't think 'he' would approve,"

The equipment operator said.

"The man is dead," I thought to myself,

Yet he has the power to get a hole dug,

And I don't.

A squatter used to have a little authority 

In this country.

I tell myself that, anyway.

But I will continue to use this land without improvement,

And just not shave my legs all winter.

Only difference now will be,

I'll share the space with the owner,

Whose only change ever made to the place

So far has been a grave.

-jenn