After a week of rain and gloom, the sun finally
broke through late in the afternoon. Although we weren't that far
outside town, it was a pleasure to look across the fields,
to see an expanse of space where pale winter light reflected off
the trees and farm buildings in the distance.
At the back of the house, a low wood fence edged
a creek where the water ran cold into the woods.
They are endangered scenes, threatened by the
encroaching city, pushing against my back with words like
"development" and "suburban living," eating the open land.
Two hundred years ago, the place where I stood was a forest
before it became a farm. Now the open space felt like
it was an island, with an ocean of concrete and asphalt
swirling around, constituting another "threat to the peace."
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Grand niece Savannah watches as her Aunt Fran, on the left,
and Grandma Rita prepare chicken and noodles. |
It was a nice Thanksgiving, spent in the company of
my brother and his family, a total of eleven adults
and seven children under age four. Frankly, the table was
much too laden with food; it didn't interest the babies and
was more than the adults could manage. A turkey had been
sacrificed for the occasion, as had a ham (somewhere
a three-legged pig was missing one of his hips).
Mr. Turkey shoulda known better when the men
in white coats came after him with that box
of red pop-up thermometers, one just for him.
