Bourne Farm is one of my favorite places to walk in winter. I wrote the poem shared below after a January walk there two years ago. The stark beauty of the place made me think of Robert Frost poetry, and as I walked, the first lines of a poem began to form in my mind. Afterward, I challenged myself to write a poem in the Frost style, which meant rhyming and with a particular cadence. This is the poem that came out of that exercise, along with some photographs I took while walking at Bourne Farm today, another cold but beautiful January day.
Walking at Bourne Farm in Winter
by Melissa Ann Goodwin
I'm not by far the first to tread
the Bourne Farm field this winter's day.
Footprints tattoo the snowy bed
as proof of those who passed this way.
In summer, green with happy vines,
this field now thatch beneath the snow.
In autumn, ripe with pumpkins fine,
but now, no traces does it show.
Where once an orchard bloomed in May
and bore its fruit in autumn's glow,
now just six twisted trees remain
to guard the murky pond below.
Their gnarled limbs tangle, curve, and bend,
against the clearest of blue skies.
They feel like old familiar friends:
steadfast, unflinching, stalwart, wise.
Such life these fields and trees have known!
Soil tilled, harvests reaped, seasons turned.
And those like me, who walk alone,
each one a life whose soul has yearned
to feel this sun upon their face,
to let the earth erase their fear,
to ask forgiveness and for grace,
to know it matters they were here.
Vacancy
