I walked along golden hills still with spring green.
I past along a mended fence.
The fences both new and old marched along that road speaking much
of times great flight.
But louder still did the fields speak and that lone house on the hill.
It spoke of time and toil.
It spoke of those who came before and toiled as well.
The loudest it spoke in it’s neglect, yet still it stood in majesty,
Surrounded by the life’s blood of the fields.
For many houses have I seen proud upon the hill but surrounded where they not by the fields.
No longer did the land they hold, the fields heart beat kept by man.
Although majestic they stand without the land.
And sorry felt I for that house and the man who kept the fields.
How often must his mind wonder to the fruits that money yield.
Although he has great majesty in labor and in toil his house once proud stands in neglect to the call of the fields.
My mind did wander at that time consider the past. How once did great houses stand only, as this one must have too, surrounded in prosperity; their fields bringing forth fruit, abundance and charity.
But that was in our youth; for now great houses stand with out their land and fields; their foundations built on a different sort; not from the stones of the field.
And sorry was I for those houses and that lone one on the hill. For as the fences have been mended, torn down and re-built the hearts of men have turned from the land and rest now on the kiln. The forge that brings forth coin; money how perverse.
For the labor now that builds great houses knows not the earth.
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For Val Rossi: Lawndale Road; Kenwood California 5.22.88 (revised 180123)
works of words 