POETRY |
Return to Norwegian Hollow
by Charlene Anderson
Author's Note: The Driftless Area [Zone] is a region in southwestern Wisconsin [which, along with parts of Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois,] escaped the flattening effects of glaciation during the last ice age and is consequently characterized by steep, forested ridges [and] deeply carved . . . valleys. (Wikipedia)
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I float onto a sideroad,
near the farm where I grew up, and slide along the winding road down into a valley in the Driftless Zone. There, I sit on a picnic bench with my family outside the Norwegian Hollow Hideaway Bar: a trace of a stream slips past the front door, cows watch us, grazing, jaws moving smoothly up, down, down. I drink the best Reisling I ever had. We talk quietly about the weather and the sun, how down here, the sun turns leaves translucent gold, and about the lack of geologic deposits/drift because the glacier skirted around us, here in the Driftless Zone. Like life, and death, the scene is real, poignant, yet also surreal, like translucent sunlight on green leaves. * * *
My parents and older brother are gone now,
moved along and drifted away. I hope where they are, the sun shines easily through soft leaves, the wine is better than anyone can imagine, and as they gaze out into a pasture and listen to a whispering stream, they’re together: talking together, smiling together, together in their Driftless Zone. * * *
I float again, down along that curving road to Norwegian Hollow.
I feel their presences moving with me-- and there’s not only silence but warmth here now. I turn in the trees, and in the leaves of the trees, drifting down, down, back into the heart of the Driftless Zone. I swirl through it; it circles around me. We are quiet. One. |
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