Rough hands and strong backs
that built these stone walls
are gone.
Flesh is dust.
Walls which edged corn fields,
kept woods at bay, lay broken,
half unstitched stitches through trees,
long rock scars,
woven through second growth.
Old farm’s died off.
Sweat it took to work the land’s
alloyed with soil.
Nothing’s left but shadow barriers,
keeping nothing out or in.
But these ruins shape memory of
old boundaries.
A wild labyrinth of vine,shrub,weed
replaces corn row, path, hedge.
Yet alchemied within the chaos
is an order, defined as a razor cut.
Inherent progress of pine over maple.
Inevitable savage victory of sharper teeth.
Slow self assertion of slow owl over slower vole.

It is for this ancient order my own soul,
like the wilderness,
seeks.