Old Midwest

[cidermaid]

Hi Billy,
Much better than my attempt at one of these, which did my head in, so I understand some of the problems you have encountered with this.
Not sure i can offer much about your adherance to the form so will give a few thoughts on the story contents and some of the word choices.

Our farm like pa, was young and strong The farm being refered to as young and strong makes me think that perhpas it was a new stake/ frontier farm spoken of or else how could it be young. But I liked the pairing of image to personify the land with the age of the farmer
the bales were bucked by quaking back. I had not personally heard of bales (of hay or straw) being bucked before [i would have used chucked] but this does not mean it is the wrong word to use. Bucked has a strong image to me of the bale fighting back and being awkward about the job in hand. I think with quaking back might sit better as a descriptor..have had this problem after bale lugging enough times to know exactly what is spoken of
He worked until his shadow long This line just sounds odd to me, I get the image but: He worked into the shaddows long sounds a better way of describing of long hard days of manual labour and would reinforce the idea of breaking his back working the farm.
had merged inside the dusky black The start of this line would then need changing to something like: which (and would perhaps then bugger everything up)
and golden grains lay sack by sack. Love this line [and above connect]. The product of his broken back and sweated brow. Solid bygone farm image.
Old willy pulled the plough by day Didn't have a problem with old Willy...never heard of a person pulling a plough and dosen't matter to my read if this is an ox or a horse or a mule.
at night he ate, and then we'd play. This line and the next are the ones that i would say feels most odd or forced in terms of content. The idea of the images of the son getting to ride and play on the mule / horse is great and also the detail of the treat...but it just reads a bit weak as you have presented it and almost like you were suddenly in a hurry to finish the poem. The mule gets to eat some of the corn he has help to haul in (don't muzzle the ox and all that good stuff)...the boy gets to kick up some dust.
His treat an apple, or a pear
that mom refused to throw away,
back then, when things were fine and fair. Feel indiferent about the last two lines. I get an new image shoved in at the end but not really explained to suggest that the hard graft days of old are now percieved as somehow better than the current existance, but why? I was expecting some sort of link back to the opening image of the young man / farm land, to show them both now aged or something like this.

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i tried my hand at a dizain, i'm sure the last line is forced but i found myself stuck in a corner, not sure how to do the last line any other way.

Sorry not much by way of help as such, but hope the thoughts on the story are of some help.
AJ.