New highways incise the horizon,

Cleaving our forever hills.

The wheat fields lie divided

And our old barn rests, grazing thistle.

Cruelly wintered, sweetly summered,

Soft-spoken in its gray twill shroud,

Back-broken in its sway, still proudly

Spilling secrets of cats and cattle

The apple trees kneel, gnarled,

Fence posts lean against the wind

Their wires spring like sharpened sprouts

Born of barb and thornbush.

The heartworn house is gone, sacrificed

To many years’ neglects,

And I often wonder if the new road

Separates more than it connects

                    --- JOAN RITTY