3663. MY MOST GENERAL COLLAR

MY MOST GENERAL COLLAR

All of this was yours, once upon a time:

the bailiwick tree on the old ozone plain,

the stevedore hats in a row. Fifteen loose

ferries were plying the harbor  -  all East River

playthings at work. The old man with the Dutch

clay pipe, he kept looking out, to the distance

for something. Some far geography to be rolling

in. I asked him to tell me more. He shrugged.

-

I was gone for two months to Carlisle by

wagon. We plodded the dirt-trails and the

rocky hillside pass. Pennsylvania beckoned,

but it took some doing : over the pass, around

the besieging rock of the Gap. Each time we

made camp, I wrote notebook entries for you.

-

You see, I was never alone, and the

smokes of the gangly campmen, the fires

on homemade hearths, the stupid soups

of rabbit and squirrel, they all kept me

thinking of home  -  that harbor again,

those old Dutchman planks, and you.