A Jersey Shore in Ryegate

A Jersey Shore in Ryegate

There were raspberries in that pasture

there was a hill from which we could

see a couple old Vermont towns

we were the youth of the fifties

scrambling through the brush

dodging cows that gave us

a puzzled eye

chewing cud in docile amusement

the herd stared silently 

So many decades later

I walked up to where the barbed wire fence

once stood separating humans and bovines

no fence, no cows, no youth

all of it grown over with brush

that hill lost in youth

surely still on that once pure green

horizon 

but now just a memory

leaves me pondering

what those cows thought of us

and how strange we must have

seemed to them

as we carried buckets of raspberries

back to the old farmhouse.

erin-cilberto

7/19/25

Reviews

[John the Baptist]

Past a certain age, memories of the distant past can appear frequently. Maybe it is a reminder that there is less time remaining than there was. I get them but try to ditch them asap.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

These memories are so worth hanging onto forever.
Thank you, John.
j.

[emmajoygreen]

What wonderfully concise, creative and heartfelt words, my friend! Everyone should recall such places and times because as long as brought to mind.. they live on.. and on.. and.. just as the cows hope they might too - with or without the raspberries.

(Here it might be wild blackberries thrusting themselves out of hedges beyond which were fields of noisy, nosey cows!)

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Noisy and nosey...love it....they are curious.
Thank you for your words, em.
j.

[FlatDaddy]

My, my, what a sweet piece from you, jacob. It made me think back to my youth (as it surely must to anyone with a past and a field and a bucket of anything sweet)
For me, it was a tree festooned with wild grapes my stepfather made me pick for his homemad wine. Not quite the sweet picture, huh? I don't want to go back to that field or that tree and I didn''t see any cows.
but the grapes were good. and I stole my stepdad's wine and took it with me on speech tournaments. It helped.
I like your version much better, J. I've no idea what those cows thought, but I think you got the best part of that bucket.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

I wonder what those cows were thinking, but I am thanking you for sharing your memory...how many bottles of that wine do you still have?

[FlatDaddy]

Oh, long gone, my friend, very long gone. But that's okay; it wasn't very good wine anyway.