As I walk along a wooded lane
      worn down by time
          I wonder:
Could it have been my father’s day
when wheels ceased to use this way?
Could it have been his father’s day
when first the field began to stray?
      A crooked pass —
          through meadow —
              from woods
                  to barnyard stack it goes.
As time engulfed so did growth
      as meadows ceased to be.
A small growth here —
      a sapling there —
          first one, then two . . . and three.
Soon a wooded road it came
      this meandering trail I walk.
          Through time
              and life,
through field to wood
      now I
          where once he stood.

— John Athearn, March 1979