even though you're in another
land today, between heaven and apple-
pear, peach orchard,
I see veins of your weathered
face and feel light
from your presence,
when I clutch
your hand
with middle finger
missing, as you reach
under chickens' breasts for eggs
between milking teats
of Holsteins and polishing
fruit for deliveries in town.

Do you hear maple sap
plinking pails
from spigots you set out
in March,when we gathered
sap with saddle horse and sleigh
to turn liquid amber?

You were planting more
fruit trees and playing
your harmonica
while whip-poor-wllls'voices
rose from woodlands.

I will return to visit you
in your serene pasture before
nightfall, where
the wealth you passed
on to me was reverence
for sacredness
of living landscape.