Setting out. Listening, watching. Stories to be told, stories to hear.
The downed wood lies about, single or clustered, cairns marking the paths of a woodland in meditation. You can see it as the end or the beginning, a point on a circle, dissolution and rebirth.
Rain falls from the oceans that rains fill enriching the colors of Autumn. Discarded leaves exhale fragrances of the season, sweet and melancholy.
In another place, new stars are born of the dust and vapor of old while here new mothers visit and children play.
Old roads, gravel underfoot, pathways to memories.
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The farmhouse sits back, a quarter mile of gravel from the main road, which itself is not much to talk about being two almost lanes of loose gravel that shakes the bolts out of the old Chevrolet and coats it all with dust. The roads are ditched deep, filled with cattails and an occasional snake if you didn’t watch it.
You would see them out there, the old farmers, on a Massey, or a Deere, back and forth, back and forth, raising a dust cloud of their own as if to tell the world, yes, I’m here too.
The sun was high and sky so clear as I walk the narrow tracks between fields in crop or harvest, taking time to explore, toss a rock here or there, soft seeds floating off the cattails picked.
Get the mail was the idea expressed, an adventure it becomes as I imagine where these old roads lead, who is traveling them now, who traveled them then.
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Leaf Fall
I watched a leaf fall today
first left, then right, a slow spiral
lifted up by a hand playfully
settling it to the ground by those
who came before
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An Old Fence Line
runs along this road
I saw it today, barbed wire
and woven, the end coiled
and hung, rusty now with age
Trees and vines have grown
through sections still standing
Warp and weft, a loom the
weaver abandoned for
better prospects.
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Silent
The woods are full of sounds today, leaves rustling in the wind which whistles in my ears, the soft sound of leaf fall, a crisp high note as each one reaches the ground. Turkey, deer and squirrels move through the new leaf cover, unbothered by my presence. As a child , leaves were a new playground, piled to jump in, raked in imagined forts and rooms, dragged by boots shuffling happily through.
In summer Instruments play; insects the back and forth of violin bows, bird songs the flute and clarinet, frogs are bass. A cacophony or symphony as you prefer.
There are moments, though, when the woods fall silent, when the wind is hushed, all are asleep.
Perhaps it is the first snow fall, maybe the pre-dawn interlude. The woods an orchestra after the last note is sounded, the pianist has thrown his hands in the air in joyful exuberance, the audience silent before the groundswell of ovation.
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Downed Wood
One upon another
they stack
Beech upon Oak
Maple on Gum
Each in turn to be
first notes, to begin
again the song
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The Table
Two mothers at a table across from
each other
Heads nod, features change, children
at play
They talk of the world and those
nearest
Stars in their galaxies with
orbiting small planets enjoying
a day on swings and slides
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I walked by the milk house, a small white building at the neighboring farm, long since retired from the original role. It’s on a curve the creamery truck would round as it came to collect the days milk when this land was in dairy.
There was a milk house too, down that quarter mile drive I used to walk, past the cattails, along the ditches half filled with water, by the oil tank and granary, not far from the chicken coup and the model T we’d sit in imagining.
Imaging ourselves older, grown, with cars of our own and places to go. The milk house in the barn was cool, almost cold, deep ground water piped into the cement tank, keeping the gray, metal cans of cream and milk the hand cranked separator had parted all waiting on the rumble of the coming truck.
Milking finished and clean up done, a kitten lapping the saucer of milk on the cool, wet, concrete floor, cows turned out, black and white pushing through the barnyard dust.
A shiny, steel bucket was filled from the well and carried up the worn path from barn to house, a path the uncles would trod, down and back, down and back, setting a rope guide for winter blizzards.
Our drinking water for the day, set in the kitchen by the sink, a white, enamel veneer dipper, a little chip on the rim, served as the communal vessel. The kitchen was warm, a wood cooking stove in glowing pale yellow with chrome handles and cranks, mysterious compartments and a belly full of fire tended to by aunts in aprons always dusted with flour, six loaves of bread from the mornings baking.
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Saying Goodbye
I walk in circles, around the house, around the grounds
greeting each in turn as they emerge in spring, growing
in light as the earth tilts.
Blooming as the seasons change, our relationship deepens
as we converse, friends now, counting on one another
for help in time of need.
As shadows lengthen, their time comes to an end, frost will take them
and my circles will slow.
We are perennials all, goodbyes temporary
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