By Unadilla Brook
for Tony Mathews
Tony and his tumor took us on a walk. He forgets
words, sometimes, but he remembers the way: Down
the driveway, past the garden that’s been put to bed, through
the stand of cherry trees growing straight and tall. Selected
and cleared around since they bought the place, twenty-five
years ago. Almost ready to turn into lumber. So is he.
Across the street and down the road, past the school
where Cory & Phoebe flew. Into the woods past Tagnarelli’s
horse fence. Here’s where the old Gill Tavern once stood. See
the stones, still drunk on mead. Rolling ever so slowly down
the hill. Down towards Unadilla Brook –it means “meeting place”
in Algonquin- and the thickest millstones we’ve ever seen. Moss
is growing on her grooves, stuck on like crusted flour. But the
dam is gashed, like our tour guide’s skull, the scar of time
decaying. The underbrush here like his uneven ‘do. His cane
finds footing where his optic nerve fails. He is still working to conserve
this land. It will soon be conserving him.