the old osage orange hedge
still marches perpendicular to the road
marking the boundary line of a farmstead
long since swallowed up by atomic age homes.
who knows how long they’ve stood there,
wood hard as nails, roots reaching deep
down into the limestone hill.
if their past planter could see them now
would he be distracted at the modern marvels speeding by below,
or would he take a long look and then slowly say,
them’s my trees — look how well they’ve grown?
