Ellenville

        by David H. Spielberg

 

I was eight and already knew the

comfort of summer in the mountains

past Ellenville and Monticello

where they always started road repairs,

my mother said, in the summer

 

to make it hard for New Yorkers, for the fathers

trying to get back on the weekend

while their families stayed all week

and I walked down dirt country roads

and picked up flat water polished stones

 

that you could rub against another rock

to make a heart shape or fling

into the pond and make it skip

twice three times maybe four

by the edge of the water:

 

pickerelweed and purple loosestrife

hemlock and Queen Ann’s lace

and the sticky sap and silky threads

of milkweed and four leaf clovers

if you were lucky.

 

Like Roy was lucky coming home

from Vietnam walking down the road

me flinging stones into the brush

of a sun drenched, butterflied, blue-skied

astonished-dog-to-see-Roy-once-again kind of day

 

until one of the stones I chucked

struck a metal post hidden in the brush and

ricocheted off with a bang while Roy hit the ground

face pressed against the dirt¾body melting

into the contours into the pebbles and the dust

 

of the road¾and I know now why Roy came home

while others were simply markers

on a military grave.

I didn’t understand then but knew enough

to stop throwing stones and didn’t say a word

 

as Roy got up shaking his head, chagrined.

Dusting off his pants and shirt

he walked a few yards in silence

and began casting stones into the blackberries

the joe-pye-weed and the laurels.