Down the path at Westport

by Rebecca Lesses

Walk along the asphalt road

Turn for the stone steps going up

Conservation land

Farmer in the late 1800s

A house, two barns, and a silo? A kiln?

What/who before then? 

Wampanoags here before the English

King Philip’s War

And afterwards, among them, though diminished

On the left, a field, on the right, a pond, boardwalk over a stream

Other side of the stone wall

Muddy trail

Boardwalk over the stream

Grandpa and grand-daughter –tells the history of the land

More mud

Under the pine tree, needles absorb the wet

Longer boardwalk 

A second set of steep steps

Take a left

Pass the silo on the left, 

Large empty field

In 2020 – corn was sown here and harvested

The last two years – no corn, plants waving in the wind

Up to my height

Walk back down the hill

Boardwalk

Muddy path

I climb over a low spot in the stone wall

Cross over another little boardwalk

Walk across the hummocky field

And arrive home