My Father gave a great gift;
he freed me from urban captivity
to roam this expanse
like an adolescent lion on the Serengeti.
Land, wire fenced and sold by the acre,
but measureless when surveyed
through the transit eye of a boy...
Moss-choked ponds
bordered by elderly oak gentlemen
dressed in gray pin-striped slacks
and green velvet blazers,
keeping watch over
bluegill, black perch, and rock bass,
casting shadows on cane pole
and cork bobber.
Clear springs spiked with mint
leaching from watercress,
a tarnished tin cup cradled in a root,
left long ago for the heat-soaked thirsty.
Water-stained cliffs
and boulder-guarded caves,
slowly digested by eons of rain and river.
Gravity-pried limestones
partially submerged,
sun decks for napping turtles
A world bound only by day's length
and the stamina of young legs.
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