This poem, from Fred Lape’s collection, “Along the Schoharie,” celebrates the almost mystical connections between the human and the natural world and between the present, the past, and the future.
In the dooryard elms the robins are singing
among the dew wet leaves, the shining branches,
and here I stand where my father stood,
their brightness on me, as he once loved it.
Down by the brook in the dewy meadow
deer poise nose wrinkled at the water.
So someone years from now will find them.
New birds, new deer, new trees, new water,
the cycle binds us in like music.
We lean and rest, we stretch our hands
over the passing generations. You past,
you coming, here are my fingers touching.