Echoes...

I ask him if he played there

Where the cattails drink the pond

His blue eyes gleam, gazing fondly

To an echoing bygone

With tender smile he sees them

...jolly good times that they had

And I smile, because for a moment

The old man became a lad

© Janet Martin

He told me of the camp-outs, parties, bonfires...
...and how nobody comes here anymore.

 ...once he hung a bird-house,
planted daffodils by the cottage,
listening to the trill of the wood-thrush
Now the air is still, there is a sacred hush
where memories keep
vigil over the grave where the woods-man sleeps