As we leave, I sit and stare at the apple blossoms on the four apple trees in the setting sun. I remember those trees coming down to almost where I sit in my van, an orchard, and running between them barefoot. When I was a little girl.
As I back my van up, I swing wide, wide in order to miss a jumbo maple tree that no longer exists because it died and came down long before CJM was a twinkly in my eye. Yet it had stood there, tall, proud, with its large base for its wide branches. When I was a little girl.
When I was a little girl, there were cows to be fed and milked, honey to be harvested from the bee hives, fences to mend, hay lofts to play in. Lots of cats to love on me, and dogs to romp with. There were ponds to wade out into feeling warm mud squish between my toes. There were tadpoles to watch, blue gill to catch, black berries to pick. When I was a little girl.
When I was a little girl, on these very farms were many adventures to be had. Places to hide, places to run, warm sun, the smell of fresh mown alfalfa, the sight of corn growing in the garden taller than me. There were the sound of cows as they moo'd. At night I chased lightening bugs and fell asleep to the sound of crickets chirping.
When I was a little girl, there was a well in which I could get a drink of cool water if only I pumped it out myself. There were baby chicks and kittens. There was this great big house in which I fell asleep at night comfortable and snug under homemade quilts.
When I was a little girl, I didn't know what it was like to hear so many cars going past a window, neighbors yelling and fighting and screaming because they were drunk or high or both, just noise.
When I was a little girl.
Watching them, thinking this, I wonder, will I ever be able to give them the riches, THESE riches, that I had - when I was a little girl?
- Current Mood:
nostalgic
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Its not really a poem. I'm more waxing nostalgic than poetic.
One evening, at the same farm I describe here, as I was leaving, the sun was setting. The brilliant gold of the setting sun as it was between the dairy barn and the other barn was amazing. I wished I'd had a camera at that moment for a picture of it. Alas none was with me.
It was magical and I stood for a few moments to stare at it, trying to capture the picture in my mind to revisit it later.
To me, these farms are magical. I think that the only two people who they mean anything to outside of my Papaw are myself and my mom. Well, my mom for one farm, me for both as I got to grow up experiencing the wonder of both of them. My grandparents lived on one and my great grandparents lived on the other.