North of the Border (Mason & Dixon Line)

Emerson Country.
Tall clear forests where
Men ate woodchucks.
Limestone outcrops
pitted and white,
over the blue lake,
Minnewaska.
Sunbathing nude
by the pebbly stream,
I greet thunderstorms
that come right away–
No waiting around and brooding.

Country of clipped accents.
Surprises, like rounding the ridge:
seeing the single plume of smoke
on a midsummer dawn
distinguishable from the mist by
it’s lonely vertical lift.
Stark beauty of
driftwood at Ashokan,
Drowned valley of churchbells
cracked with impending drought,
Boats never coming to shore.

Shawangunk cliffs silhouette
over the naked corn stubble,
Pumpkin stacks and
the wild tang of Macintosh;
That native apple,
Reminding me of loss, loss again.
All the way down the Hudson
to the sweep of the Tappan Zee Bridge;
Ice floes, institutes, millionaire sewage,
Monasteries,
ranging down the left bank
like a vow of silence.

North of the border,
is as far as
the other side of the Atlantic.
Here I am as untouched
as the little people bowling
in the hawk gimleted hills.
Here I learn to tend.

Boundaries exist,
North of the border.