LEAVING WILD PEACH....ONCE AGAIN

"It's time for an old New England custom

         to come to Wild Peach:

             'Walk The Outcrops'...."

   ***************************

The summer is almost over

    at least for the young SAF

         at Wild Peach

O she has had an "education"

     a sampling of life 

all packed into a few weeks

A good plan really, for remember

     back to mere-infant time...

how babies can double their 

     brain capacity 

            "in big gulps"

so to speak

Why this also applies to the 

     teen folks with their voracious 

appetites for knowledge 

         and who are practically

                 "sponges walking"

and they don't even know it,

      probably

This young lady SAF has had a

       summer sampling of jobs---

farmer, planter, veterinarian,

    boat captain, fisher-person,

Chez (cook),  musician, and

      who knows..... whatall...

running a farm and ranch...

(There were two SAF's but one 

      had to leave early...

           Que lastima.) 

Ah, in old New England, the 

     esteemed nature-writer

Hal Borland, with a farm

     in cold Connecticutt.

told of the end-of-the-year

             custom

      in those parts, of taking 

a walk around your ancient  rock

       fences and other 

property boundaries, and

     remembering old times

and the year-then-passed..

With the summer ending, it

    is time for the grizzled,

Old Timer, in fact a wizened 

   hombre himself, to

       "walk the outcrops"

one more time, in memory,

     with his young SAF.

Maybe sit under the 

       "Gnarled Oaks" and

reminisce a spell, spread

    a little bag of grain 

for the wrens and chickadees,

      and the sparrows and

         mockingbirds

Throw handfuls of corn into 

    The Pond for the catfish

          and blue gills

Rub her favorite calf with a 

     nice stiff brush, and hug...

Sit in the marvelous junky

     open shed...and have a

cold-watermelon-juice

        homemade Popsicle

one more time, until 

                         next year...

as she spies over in the corner

     on a rickety makeshift 

bookshelf some dusty, musty

    old volumes 

which she knows are Granddad's

        favorites, and she says,

     excitedly, "Oh, GD, read some

to me from Masefield---again"

          and he opens the old

book of poems, and reads to her:

   "I must go down to the seas again,

       To the lonely sea and sky,

     And all I ask is a tall ship and a 

       star to steer her by;

     And the wheel's kick and the wind's

        song and the white sail's shaking,

     And a grey mist on the sea's face,

        and a grey dawn breaking."

After this fine and memorable 

     "going away" walk for the

young SAF, 

           a marvelous aroma

was arising over at The Pond, 

     on The Dock

K. was having a Mud Bug cookout

     with roasting ears 

as a fitting climax to The Walk

     ---a going away party

.

As she and Granddad ambled

     over that way, hand-in-

   hand, she thought 

        she heard him humming

softly thru his white beard---

           a sad Tom Russell tune

of some favorite of his...

and....was that a tear...

                        in his eye?

19 JULY 17
From the "Wild Peach Poem Collection"
"SAF" :  "Summer Assistant Foreman"