#old-fence-rows — Public Fediverse posts

The Questions Of Land

Will the timber company that bought this land,
planted evergreens and cut down the hardwood,
let the barns of chestnut growing here
crumble into dust?

Will the cemetery with its precarious stones
and mountain bones be undisturbed by lumber
trucks and visited by related
flesh and blood?

Will the flatstones the farmer placed atop the fence posts
split from the sound of big trees going down,
the planks break from wind and rain, and the fence
be lost to brush?

Will a CEO behind a wooden desk in an office with a
view with charts and graphs lined in red remember
when he climbed a tree and flew
high above the wood?

Will he ask these questions when he thinks of land,
farmers’ former fields filling up with trees, remember
the wind in his hair, and discover where the
earth is to breathe?

November 7, 2001 near Harmon, West Virginia