Life is a journey full of moments of laughter and tears. In “First Woods” and “My Old Man's Saddle,” David Bottoms explores his childhood to the present day. Bottoms moves through memory and the natural world to focus on his old man. In "First Woods", Bottoms explains that he remembered riding in a truck with his old man and uncle over rough terrain on a coon hunt. However, in "My Old Man's Saddle", he explains by recalling the news that led him to act in front of his old man's saddle. The images of his travels used in the poems focus on the journey through life with the speaker's loved ones. The road in life's journey will not always be smooth. Bottoms states, “Hitting and shoving, the road quickly falling into a rut, into a ditch, into a washout, / a constant bounce between my old man and uncle” (1, 3). The speaker immediately uses sound to explain the journey with his family and the meaning of each day. During the journey, Bottoms encounters the challenges he faces. He states: "but mostly I held the jar and the pitch, a clearing of cut hay, / the moonlight rusting a tractor, and off / in the blue...