I still think of the pasture where I climbed through sagging wire

And left the seat of my blue jeans for the sparrows to admire.

I waded through grassy currents that tugged and stained my knees,

Crossing the runnelled hillside beneath slender, white barked trees.

Two horses trotted behind me; a dog; and a cat that stalked;

All drawn like sea-bound lemmings to follow where I walked.

We marched tothe patchwork stable that leaned upon the hill,

The horses pranced and snorted while I measured out their meal.

The cat sought mice in the grain bins, I left her to her wiles;

The dog ran wild in the sunshine--the memories bring back smiles.

Sometimes in the brittle summer when the sky's so full of sun

That there is no far horizon and the earth and sky are one,

I still hear the horses, restless, beyond thin plywood walls,

Snorting their impatience while circling in their stalls...

I still hear the small cat purring, her whiskers gold with dust,

As she sits upon a bucket and smooths her pale coat mussed...

I still hear the black dog barking as he leaps among the trees,

A whirlwind chasing birds around like scattered autumn leaves...

There is deep in me a longing (both a sweet and bitter pain)

To smell the sharp wild onions and climb that hill again.

To look back across my shoulder at four friends who walk behind--

Can there be more dear companions than those four still in my mind?

There was peace within that pasture, it remains a part of me,

Like vines grown 'round a fence post my heart cannot pull free.

I think there is in each of us a pasture with a hill,

Some moment from our 'long ago' forever green and still,

And friends who wait there for us just to walk a little way

Into the peaceful memory of a sun-warmed yesterday.