Hearthstone in the Watershed

Hiking in Connecticut. Early Spring.
For M.B., with thanks for the crow.

This watershed is laced with walls of stone
hardscrabble farmers clanged with plough, dug up
by "Gee!" and "Haw!" and dragged to bound fields blown
so bare by winter no crow swooped to sup ...
A tulip tree well-past a hundred years
ago took root within this cellar hole
beside a hearth where once moms roasted ears
of corn and simmered chowder, bowl on bowl.

The love of place -- that fell away as they
exhausted all its soil, burned every tree,
their kids rode west and elders died away --
feels present still in moss-green stone debris,
in frost-felled hearthstone ... sun its only heat.
We sit on it, and rub our weary feet.