Broad Fields and Rushing Waters
Les Brown
 
I am the youngest.
I watched
as the last of the boys of the land,
hearty but old
died of the insidious unseen enemy of 2020.
His pristine kept home,
several outbuildings,
groomed lawn and tended fields
are now still.
A great pine has fallen across his meadow.
 
I am still here
and I am still there, alone.
I have watched them
like old photographs fading,
fading, fading
until the image cannot be seen.
My tether was never broken--
It held me to that place,
the land, the water, the forest,
and the few that were left--
and then another
and another and another
were laid to rest.
 
A rock church built by our grandfathers
was our anchor,
the graveyard beside it
a reminder of ticking time,
of the inevitable known
but denied to our youth.
We broke free of our chrysalises
into adulthood,
into new worlds.
Some remained,
most flew away
only to return as old men
restoring past memories,
bringing their children
40
to savor that place
of magic long ago
when time stopped in summers.
 
We were cousins
connected by land and blood
roaming the forests,
camping by clear streams, swimming,
hoeing corn,
helping our tired fathers with harvest.
 
There is a place of broad fields
and rushing water
where young boys insentiently
celebrated life unbounded.