Sepia is that burnt orange color of old
Postcards;  Of things remembered and
Still treasures of memories fading and
Almost forgotten that once were in a
Now exhuberant, that could not imagine
That it was was passing.passing before
Our eyes.  Even nowing into darkness
Where all of our treasures are buried

I sit eyes closed at the top of the wood
Desiring action, but in a dream,
Hooked head and feet immobile:
Near sleep of age, incapable to eat.

Necessity finds the highest trees....
Branches shake in sun-beaten ire;
No advantage find I in the moving air
While earth's face beckons me to fall.

Clenching now, claws deep in bark,
Creation's masterpieces find decay
Of foot and feather, come from dust,
This Creature must return to clay.

Vision strong still seeks resolve
As Earth below me still revolves,
Inward focus, resolute, admits
Tearing heads is now a chore.

Death's wind, inevitable, a chilling fact:
Who kills to live through victims' lives,
Though early arguments remain intact,
At twilight's call, they still must die.

From the West the same Sun sees me;
Only I have changed, and have grown thin,
And though my heart's set upon its path,
I've lost the strength to fly again.

"As good as any," the weary traveler said,
"For us to set our burdens down, and rest our heads."
Stopped they to ease their feet along a winding road
But just a little, then, and picking up their loads,
They journeyed onward toward a slowly setting sun
Assuming miles stretched far ahead ere they were done.
"This place," she whispered, as she held his withered hand,
"As good as any," though not the resting they had planned.
"You wait, while I go on ahead," her whisper sighed,
His resting place a shallow, the winding road beside.
Suns rose and set a little while while she trudged on,
The hazy past a trail; eternity beyond.

Dad,
Can it be that you are gone now,
Five years' comings and goings,
Five solar journeys now, around the sun?

I can still see your shape,
Thin and worn,
Overalls, too big,
Cap pulled down,
Pliers hanging at your side,
Lace-up boots, worn,
And your face, lined,
Eyes still twinkling, though
Weary after a day's work,
Fixing,
Farming,
Fencing,
Feeding.

In my mind, you're
Going off to the barn,
To hay the cows,
Like an old imam
Heading mechanically
To daily prayers,
Moved by routines
Impossible to ignore.

The man and the work,
So embedded in the other...
No more thought of leaving -
Though as a younger man,
You spoke of some day retiring -
There was no way, and no desire,
Farming was your one remaining fire.

So, five years are gone,
And yet, everything still
Standing on the farm
Bears resemblances of you.

The peeling buildings, sagging still,
The gravel paths you tended,
The panels your hands welded,
The barns and sheds you built
Still stand, and bear the evidence
Of Arthur Bouchard's hands.

Alcohol encourages unusual behaviors,
As many may attest;
The fruit of drunkenness,
Embarrassment.

When I was ten, I saw a thing,
I've been reluctant to report,
But 45 years have come and gone,
And I find I have to tell someone
The tale of Christmas at my Gran's.

The neighbors came by invitation,
Arriving in style for a rural celebration,
In steady form, as alcoholics will maintain,
Little wobble in their walk,
Little slurring in their conversation.

What struck us into consternation,
Was Charlie's hairpiece, new and black,
Banded at one end, a horsetail piece,
Inverted and trimmed into a toupee,
How he'd figured out the thing,
Only alcohol could say.

The evening was funny,
With everyone not staring,
Taking sideways glances,
I'd say, "Please pass the peas,"
And look the other way,
Grinning slyly at my brother,
I ignored the warning glares
Coming from our mother.

The dining room grew warm,
With food and warming ovens,
My father trying to lead a conversation
About cows, and horses, Grandma's fritters,
Anything to keep the room from titters.

When old Charlie commenced sweating,
The crow-ish blackness of his hair
Revealed its shoe polish beginnings,
Trickling down behind his ears,
And then a rivulet released its flow
To wend its way beside his nose,
And dripping, dripping down, began
To drench his shirt, first the collar,
Vaulting lapels to his middle,
Until a river of black sweat
Drove to his belt, and trickled in.

T'was all that I could do
To look the other way,
To put Gram's napkins to my grin,
As Charlie's horse tail wig ran threads
Of shoe black down his nose and chin.

To this day, I cannot recall
Just how the evening ended,
I only know that afterwards,
For years, the family extended
The tale of Charlie's Christmas spree:
White shirt, horse toupee, and black ink,
Caused our parents to bring warnings
Of the dire consequence of drink.

He was five or six when he first challenged her
To play a game of checkers.
Fresh-faced and eager from battles with friends,
Young master of jumping and double-jumping,
Connoisseur of cornering and kinging.
Ready to wreak havoc on his grandmother,
A simple farm wife, unskilled in the battle of the board.

He didn't contemplate that the checker set
In the old farm house was hers....

Their battles raged,
Sometimes every day,
With, "Want to play again?"
His constant question.

I would watch her lose,
Seeing what my little boy,
The often conqueror,
Could not see in victorious glee.

Twenty-five years later,
We sit again at the old farm table,
And the two are pitted in their checkers game;
The same, but wearied box waiting
While the battle rages on the old scarred board.

Her hand, uncertain, moves the pieces slowly
As though she is off somewhere thinking,
And he, now patient, waits in a treasured time,
For her to contemplate and make her moves.

He is twenty-nine, and she is eighty-nine,
And though the opportunities rise,
Through my misty eyes,
I see my son, pulling punches.

Hair flying like lace all undone in the wind,
Flaxen and golden and fine in the sun,
Scented with hay mown fresh before dew,
A laugh on her breath and the mention of you.

She came in from the chores
Bearing Dolly's warm milk in a pail,
A tabby young kitten threading her heels,
And baby was greeting his mother in squeals.

She came in with the cold, blown by the wind,
And shuttered the heavy old door.
She stirred up the coals in the rusty old stove,
Cheeks all afire with the ice and the snow,
Stamping her feet by the fire's warm glow.

She came in from the spring,
A pail in her hand, and butter, packed in a jar,
Humming a tune with mud on her shoes,
A meadowlark's call on her mind,
First signs of green and new life on the wind.

She came in from the walk,
Frown on her face, mail in her hand,
Letters from home, black ribbon adorned,
News that made tears find their place,
And saddened her heart as it raced.

She came in from the fields
Weary and worn, old from the sun and the wind,
And she settled herself by the rusty old stove,
And she rocked in her battered old chair,
Reflecting a life both bonny and rare.

She came in from the fields,
And she'll go back again
When the evening sun makes its way
Round the flickering stairs to new day;
She'll rise just a bit before dawn
To stoke up the dwindling fire,
And go feed the new lamb
Whose mother has left her alone,
Whose mother has left her alone.

Sometime early in the year,
Calving drawing on,
Seeders and tractors
Lose their dormant chill,
Began demanding preparation,
Murmuring anticipation:
"Clean the seed for planting!"
"Till the soil and ready it for seed!"

The farmer, wanting rest,
Anxiously awaits first sprouts,
Anticipates the time to till the noxious weeds,
Watches capricious sky for signs of rain or hail;
Tends fences; guards his fields,
Where ripening grain cannot predict the yields.

June scrambling begins:
The readying for harvest,
The hopeful storage plans,
The preparation of harvesters
Expensive beyond budgets,
Soon to lumber out and gather
Dying summer in....

Autumn's chilling breath
Calls quickening to the work:
The gathering of straw,
The hauling-in of hay,
The opened stubble fields for cows;
The planting of winter wheat,
That first must sprout before frost....
(If not the seeding may be  lost).

How does the rancher learn to dance
The annual rhythms of the land?

When do we bring the cows, bawling,
From open summer to sheltered winter pastures?
When is it time to bring the stubborn bulls
To the empty, urgent cows,
Or to remove them from contented cows,
Grown placid in the heaviness of calves?

How do we know the time
To round up the sweltering herds,
Bringing the bellering calves to brand?
Or when do we cull the frightened heifers,
Lucky in their selection, but uncertain?
When should we pare the weanlings,
And when call we the buyers?

And, when is the time for hiking forty miles
Of rusting fence,
Replacing posts,
Mending broken wire
Before the changing of pastures?

And when is the time to come to ease,
To sense the satisfaction
In seeing grazing cattle,
Tails swishing away the black flies of June,
Moving through gray-green prairie grass
On their way to cool creek water?

Just before the sun fires of the
Day are turned low--when the
Bright Summer sky is still pure
Blue the Little League Park is
Full of children and older folks.
The children play games of no
Names that are as old as the hills
It is liked a revival meeting with
No tent or preacher only people
Come as  to some long ago Druid
Holy place.  I say to myself
Come my heart to me on this
Bench of former times; let my
Soul recline and be at peace
All is well is it not though I do
Not belong and am only a
****** incognito and alone.
Just beyond the field is the
River and across the river the
Church my parents married in.
There also the old high school
their alma mater in that quaint






Old time that was just before
The war.  I had stopped here
For reasons I cannot explain
I had roots of conception in
This town but not by birth
All was to me as Willoughby
My home in a wishful dream.

Across the reflective fields of Hill Country grass begins to escape its icy enclosure ..Black Angus leave red clay impressions bound for green pastures ..Mourning doves wail their somber retreat as first light exposes the prequel to Heaven .. Blackbirds and smoke from morning bonfires alight , the promise of daylight is scented with Oak and Hickory as fields of cotton appear to ignite . Tin roofs begin to glow , church bells awake villages on the horizon . Golden waves pan Eastern skies , Sycamores sequester abundant sunshine ..Sparrows , Chickadees and Finches gossip without end , Bluejays and Brown thrashers command the fence line once again .
Barbed wire enclosures divide the landscapes , dancing scrub Pines act as reeds , filtering the breeze with the music of natures continuity ..
Blacktop drives ribbon the lonesome acreage , goat herds graze the property frontage . Quarter , Morgan and Appaloosas quietly graze against the backdrop of nineteenth century farm houses .. White silos and red barns , gourd birdhouses , dug wells and smokehouses ..Bantam roosters and hens sift through acorns beneath two hundred year old Water Oaks ..

O to be young once more , to welcome each day with a smile ..
Drawn to the kitchen by the smell of waffles , a new day awaiting just outside our window .. Sweet , fresh cut summer grass , each yard replicated the next , fastidious and diligently manicured all the way to Main Street where neighbors would meet ..
Root beer floats and fried sweet potato pies , the band performing on the city square ..
Summer calmed by afternoon showers , the scent of southern cuisine on an open grill filled our city .. June was a magic time to be alive ..