abandoned
for years
overgrown
with sumac and sour apple,
the
iron scrapped, the wood long
gone
for other things.
In
summer my father would send us along them
to
fetch the cows from the back pasture,
a
long walk to a far off place it seemed
for
boys so young. Lost again for a moment
in
that simple place,
I
fling apples from a stick and look for snakes
in
the gullies. There is
a
music to the past, the sweet tones
of
perfect octaves
even
though we know it was never so.
My
father had to sell the farm in that near perfect time
and
once old Al Shott killed a six foot rattler on the tracks.
"And
when the trolly was running" he said, "you could jump
her
as she went by and ride all the way to Cleveland,
and
oh," he said, "what a time you could have there."
