by David Budbill
Dangling from a branch
nine feet off the ground
in a Balm-of-Gilead
that stands beside the mill
below the road
down by the river
in the center of the village
is a baby carriage
which is the high water mark
for the flood of ‘70
and is why nobody has ever
taken it down–a reminder
of the day we were cut off.
We paddled a canoe down the road to Jerry's
tied up at the gas pumps
and watched cars and porches
going down the river.
Nelson Beaudry got twelve trout
out of his cellar that day,
but that high water was nothing
like the flood of ‘27.
Then the river washed this place away
and some people say
what was left and what's here now
isn't a town at all.
They say it's only ghosts of what once was.
The only people who think this place is real,
they say, are folks who live here;
the rest of the world doesn't even see it,
drives through and doesn't notice–which
they say
is proof
Judevine and all of us who live here
really don't at all,
that we and this place are dead
and have been dead
for years.
From JUDEVINE: Revised Edition, by David Budbill, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 1991 & 1999