Bird’s-eye View

 1960

In a Cesna, my boyfriend and I flew a few hundred feet above the twisting Whetstone River, and then he swooped us down even lower over my childhood farm.

 The gentle hills were flattened. They lost their contours. The great twists of the river were diminished; the proud oaks and cottonwoods lost their height, and their pride. And then with a shift of the clouds the deep green leaves, the bronze of the river, even the black spots of my father’s cows (that I spied in the pasture) lightened. All that I love faded to shades of gray. That beloved parcel of land had become an unfamiliar fading photograph.

© Barbara Scoblic 2019

Skipping Stones on Walden Pond

1995

If on that January afternoon

you had been standing near the ragged heap of rocks

where we had just added ours

and heard our laughter (but not seen us),

you would have guessed, perhaps,

three twelve-year-old girls escaped from a boring class,

not three women.

A thin layer of ice,

not quite reaching the shore,

created a large crystal drum, as we three sisters by choice

(when would we be together again?)

skipped our stones, making music,

zinging notes that echoed on to

the far edge of the dark tree-bordered bowl.

For a few minutes we competed,

searching along the shore for the best stone

and then aiming it carefully

to see who could make the music last longest,

but competing was not for us

and so,

we laughed and marveled at this moment.

Then, together, we each threw one last stone,

And hurried away,

Before silence could begin.

© Barbara Scoblic 2019