Near Edenville.(Poem)

 
NEAR EDENVILLE 
 
   Stone fences ring the fields where cows still graze 
   and cornfields, stubble now, gleaned by the birds. 
 
   New fences laid by masons show that time 
   and the proper tools can shape a wall precise 
 
   as mathematics. Old ones that farmers 
   made to clear these splinters from the glaciers 
 
   were balanced with rough skill and no mortar 
   but resentment. Rocks came up like weeds, no 
 
   matter how many more they'd cleared away. 
   No point in wasting anything. The makeshift 
 
   walls meant no post holes to dig, no split rails 
   to string. The old walls run along the roads 
 
   until they sink, like streams gone underground 
   to bubble up a little further on. 
 
   And some, like soldiers going from attention 
   to at ease, are sleeping scattered in the fields. 
 
   With nothing to protect, they can become 
   themselves again, and not what they were trained 
 
   a while to be. Bluestem gone wild seeps over 
   empty lots. Walnuts, cedars, maples, oaks 
 
   sprout up past raspberries and jimson weed, 
   field mustard, Queen Anne's lace, and chicory. 
 
   In barns packed to ...