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Terra Martin

Once upon a town ...

Wildfield could be measured end to end by one long yawn. Tiny farms here and there like patchwork quilts. Barns painted with surnames in legible script. The lawns were so well- manicured they looked as if they had just come from a day at the hairdressers.

biting into the flesh
of a wild crab-apple
the tart sweet taste
of a tomboy's
dreams

The red brick church was the tallest building in town. The limestone school, nestled down the hill, stood on the opposite side of the street. Nearby, a pond of bull rushes, a few tadpoles and the odd goldfinch.

That was then but now ...

Subdivisions spring up everywhere like mushroom colonies after a heavy rainfall. Developers cry "Progress" as their steel machines with shark-like teeth bite into rich farm soil. The foreman, awake at the crack of dawn, with one hand over his mouth hides a long yawn.

the rising haze
of Indian summer
like a thin blanket
a consolation until
the first freeze