Buggy Highway which was made in the early 1930s to connect the two pioneer farms together; the farm that was located on Canoe Point with the Ferme Fleur-de-Lys. The path now follows along a rough pasture, but in the 1930s it was a narrow track through thick bush.
On that walk I started to think of all the other landmarks on the farm and the names associated with them; Bear Lookout, the top of the Big Hill, The Secret Field, the Gravel Pit, the Lean To, Broken Thumb Hill. The names of these places are like a secret code, with only a select few people knowing where they are. In the next few months I will visit all of these places. It is a process of reclamation of what I thought was lost.
Buggy Highway, September 2012
I followed in the path of my bovine friends.
Right up to the top of the hill where everything below lay gently.
Around the rocks that my father lay for his mother's ashes, and then his own.
Beyond the wall of trees that have grown thick around his burial ground.
This place is for wandering, breathing, a prayer.
This place is for life.
On that walk I started to think of all the other landmarks on the farm and the names associated with them; Bear Lookout, the top of the Big Hill, The Secret Field, the Gravel Pit, the Lean To, Broken Thumb Hill. The names of these places are like a secret code, with only a select few people knowing where they are. In the next few months I will visit all of these places. It is a process of reclamation of what I thought was lost.
I followed in the path of my bovine friends,
where the fence was down, twisted and broken.
Somehow seeing that gave me permission, where they went,
I went too.
Everywhere there were signs of their passage, the grass down
close
to the earth.
Manure, dried and grey.
A true comfort to find myself in the field,
To remember what I love.
Right up to the top of the hill where everything below lay
gently,
barns, all the grass and the thrilling green of the trees.
How could I have let the fence stop me for all these months?
The cows knew better, and now I do too.
Feet follow soul.
Around the rocks that my father lay for his mother’s ashes,
and then his own.
Will I be buried there?
Behind the wall of trees that have grown thick around this
burial ground.
My friends do not go there.
That fence would be better down as well, to allow the
animals to trim and prune.
Liberate the view that my father so loved.
No, I decide at that moment. Not below the stones on the top
of this hill.
This place is for wandering, breathing, a prayer.
This place is for life.
I followed in the path of my bovine friends.
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2 comments:
The photos make me miss the crisp fall. When where they taken? I smell wood smoke and cow dung. I yearn to chew on wild grass and hear the chickadee.
My daughter and I took these photos a couple of weeks ago. We have had a very hot dry fall and the air was thick with smoke from wild fires in Washington State. We were still swimming when these photos were taken. I am a lover of warm water and never have gone swimming so late into September. All is not as it appears.....
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