Just Down the River

Down by the cabin where the apple trees dropped

The sweetest honeycrisps

I’d ever sunk teeth into,

And o’er the field where the copperheads danced

Through the golden asters,

Who’d bend to the will of the wind,

A dock where I’d dream the day away,

Just down the river,

Where the sycamores lean too far.

Just o’er the sledding hill with the ancient oak atop

That I’d climb just to try and see

The end of a limitless wood,

And past the willow glade where I’d sleep away summer evenings

In the shade of their soft, leafy tendrils

That undulated ever so rhythmically,

A dock where I’d sit and listen

To the forest’s melody,

Just down the river,

Where the elder harts would cross.

Behind the sunken barn where feed troughs once sloshed

For a family of overjoyed hogs,

Whom I admired for their lounging ways,

And through the darkened thicket that falls away,

Tumbling through heaps of brambles,

And gazing at the valley’s heart

A dock that I unveiled,

Just down the river,

Where life and thought know no bounds.