Stonewall

 Stonewall

The house I live in

was built at the start

of the twentyfirst century

of the common era

on what was once a meadow

until well into the twentieth 

People who grew up 

around my place

remember the cows

wandering across the field 

curious about the people

admiring them

from the side of the meandering road

that once was a carriage way

between Providence and Boston

now called Bay Road

A rough stone wall

running north to south

separates our front acre

from the back one

and the big pond adjacent to it

I can't help 

but notice it often

a time machine

that sometimes carries me back

several centuries

as I go about my day

I like to walk along it

and have only altered it

ever so slightly

to improve stability

preserving its integrity

character and perseverance

akin to that of 

a stubborn confederate general 

standing his ground 

We live in a place 

the hills and woods of which

I am blessed to wonder

along trails ancient and new

which lead me to granite mesas

glacial erratic boulders

some delicately balancing

on rocky outcroppings and spines

to modest cliffs 

and expanses of glacial scree

to shallow valleys 

to ponds and streams 

flowing through the till

with its cobbles and pebbles

and polished stones

Once a turkey vulture touched down

in the tree canopy close to me

I was standing on the dome

at the top of a cliff

We made eye contact 

as I listened to the calls

of the great horned owls 

in the distance

memories now stored 

amongst my favorite things

The rocks from which

the stone walls are created

have been extruded from the till

over the thousands of years

since the end of the last ice age

when the glaciers receded

and the sea levels rose

and the coastal hills

became the islands

of what we now call Boston harbor

submerging the valleys 

where the inhabitants roamed 

and hunted and gathered

from the abundance

that once was close

to the ancient shore

their cultivars

a little further inland

gentle with the world

Explorers driven by bravery and greed

drove away the wise inhabitants

of this ancient land

which they brazenly called 

the New World

Waves of new arrivals followed 

fleeing from the settled lands

of the European continent

to escape untenable predicaments

in search of a better life

The stone walls

remind us of their toil

chopping down the trees

to build and heat their homes

moving rocks to clear the fields

to create boundaries inside which 

merino sheep could graze

and produce their precious wool

and cattle feed 

providing the milk and meat 

to sustain them

The first inhabitants

who were here 

for almost 12,000 years

before the settlers arrived

were overcome 

by diseases and guns

they had never encountered before

From the south 

of what would become

the United States of America

from plantations fueled by 

the labor of captured Africans

cotton production replaced

the demand for northern wool

Mount Tambora in distant Polynesia

erupted in 1815

producing a year long winter 

in the northern hemisphere 

so crops failed

and livestock froze

The farmers here

had to load their wagons

and head west

leaving behind the stone walls

their absence enabling 

secondary forestation

of the meadows they had worked

so hard and long to create

It is impossible for those of us

wandering these woods now

to miss the ubiquitous rows of stone

Archaeologists have to be trained

to be able to find

the signs that the people 

once called American Indians

the Massachusett

the Wampanoag

the Narragansett

the Pequot

the Mohegan

the Penobscot

the Mohican

the Mashpee

and many others left behind 

subtle evidence 

of their durable civilizations

not obvious to those

who live here today

except for the names

Most of us know 

that Massachusett

is a Native American word

but many of us are not aware

that it means big hill

now called the Blue Hills

that Connecticut means

meandering tidal river

that Monadnock

is a mountain in New Hampshire

but not that the word means

mountain which stands alone

that Wachusett translates to

a place near a mountain

that Sunapee

means goose lake

and that Winnecunnet

means shallow pond

that Massasoit

is a state park

named after the wise leader

or sachem 

also known as Metacom

who the settlers called King Philip

during the sixteen hundreds

And so it is written in stone

in the woods all around us

that we are destined to fail again

as certainly as the sun rises

unless we change our ways

unless we realize

that it does not pay to be stubborn

that we need to live 

in harmony with an ever changing world

that natural wisdom

is much greater than our own

and that we must become wise enough

to find our place

within the natural order

because there is nowhere left to run

Aubrey Lieberman

4/24/23