Strange, sad story, Gary. It has to be true because you couldn't make it up.
Thanks for that
----- Original Message -----
From: "garydawg" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 5:06 PM
Subject: New: Hay for the Horses
> C and C please
>
> Hay for the Horses
>
> I was only there once,
> at thirteen
>
> over to Willie's Uncle Shem's
> place on Churchtown Road
> off the main highway
>
> From the corner,
> you could sense the farm -
> the solid house, peg constructed
> from straight grain Douglas fir,
> barn enough to milk 40 head,
> cedar from footlogs to shake top,
> henhouse for 100, maybe 200 layers,
> white-washed horse paddocks,
> rabbit runs,
> model hog pens
> and the fields cleared to carpet green
> from ridge to river.
>
> or you would
> if you didn't see
>
> gray board fences rotted,
> pig pen dried mud,
> land overgrown with blackberries
> and scrub alder from run to hilltop,
> barn packed with boxes and barrels of beer bottles -
> Oly, Rainer, Lucky Lager,
> chicken coop chock full of soda empties -
> Nehi, Mission Orange, Hires,
> house yard, chicken yard, barn yard,
> garden plot covered with junk and treasures,
> mountains of odd glass containers
> broken by time and weather,
> Uncle Shem's shattered fortune.
>
> In '44, Uncle Shem returned from France,
> broken by winter's war,
> to a farm considered the best along the river.
> By '46, his glass obsession
> washed across barn and yard,
> no room for cows, chickens or turnips.
> By my visit in '57, the tide had carried away sons, wife -
> the last vestiges of sanity
> crystallized in dusty milk bottles,
> dirty peanut butter jars,
> and waves of empties,
>
> no hay for the horses.
>
>
> (Title from a poem of the same name by Gary Snyder.)
>
> Feb guest is TE Ballard and Gar does garbage at:
> http://gardawg.homestead.com/gardawg.html,
>
> Poets for Peace. ˇPoemas sí, balas no!
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