Cellar holes in woods brings further wonder

by Henry B Stevens


Fifteen hundred feet above the level sea
its bald top peers out in compass points
north the White Mountains, east Alton Bay
down along the old and new highway.

A trail of old roads from inhabited times
built by those who have no trace but cellar holes
rises through third-growth beech and oak until
hands and knees over bare boulder brings the view.

Rested, returning down, I pass over
on the skidder trail bulldozed leaving
raw banks a dozen feet tall eroding
rotten granite, not stone, not yet sand.

Reaching up under dirt and roots overhung
I run my fingers into dross
that's never known a human touch
squeezing, listening to the virgin crunch.

It would be enough to contemplate
the cellar holes and those lives entwined,
but oh, to wonder at the silica
mica, feldspar glistening in my open hand.