I found out when I was a kid that a portion of the Miami and Erie Canal ran through our back yard. By the looks of it you really could not tell as the banks had long since been pushed in and there were faint clues like portions that widened at certain points and standing water most of the year in what looked like a drainage ditch. My older brothers used to trap for musk rat and mink along it and hunt for rabbits further south out of town towards the clay tile mill. It is said that the bricks that went into our twin steeple church were formed and fired there in the late eighteen hundreds. I remember sledding down the weed covered hill onto the ice covered pond behind the clay works in winter.
Today, the canal looks much like it did then but the mill pond and sledding hill are long gone. I wonder how many miles of red clay drainage tile still lie beneath the earth in fields all around the surrounding area near my home town. They were used to control the drainage of what used to be The Great Black Swamp. It took a hardy group of immigrant farmers to clear, drain and produce crops on such a land so hostile. Just the mosquitoes alone would have been enough to drive many away. Some of my ancestors came down from Canada to dig the canal so that goods and people could settle and move through the area on their way to Lake Erie, Cincinnati and beyond.
This causes me to imagine the faith of these people that brought them there to begin with. German, Dutch and French left familiar faces and family to claim a piece of the American dream. And so, here is my rendering of that time through the words and images that came to me in a dream some years ago. It all begins with Christmas Eve…
On a cold December night
As the stars shine bright
Windowed faces of log houses
Flicker in candle light.
Warm quaint spaces
Crackling fire places
Kettles cooling beside once busy hearths
Shadowed now in evening shade.
In a time long forgot
People settle in their cots
While snow drifts gather
Ever higher along a man-made river.
Paths between cleared fields
Scarred by wagon wheel trenches
Now covered in utter white perfection
Stretch a lonely mile in twilight.
Forest branches creaking restless
Weight of ice and arctic breezes
Bring dormant trees to life
In clues of seasons past.
Doe and yearling forage
For a meal made scarce
Steaming breath releasing
A drink of water from a thin veiled stream.
Everywhere, darkness lingers
Stilled by a shining celestial body
Gleaming high above in an eastern sky
While immigrant farmers dream a yuletide scene.
A story told since youth
Son of God born a humble birth
In a land of palm fronds and sand
A king of heaven on earth.
Simple men tending their flocks
Wise men stirring from their dreams
Flee to a simple manger in Bethlehem
To see a Savior who would be king.
Now, looking back upon tradition
Christians telling in succession
This same story passing generations
As our founding is self evident
Remains for us a destiny
Like an American yuletide legacy.
Today, the canal looks much like it did then but the mill pond and sledding hill are long gone. I wonder how many miles of red clay drainage tile still lie beneath the earth in fields all around the surrounding area near my home town. They were used to control the drainage of what used to be The Great Black Swamp. It took a hardy group of immigrant farmers to clear, drain and produce crops on such a land so hostile. Just the mosquitoes alone would have been enough to drive many away. Some of my ancestors came down from Canada to dig the canal so that goods and people could settle and move through the area on their way to Lake Erie, Cincinnati and beyond.
This causes me to imagine the faith of these people that brought them there to begin with. German, Dutch and French left familiar faces and family to claim a piece of the American dream. And so, here is my rendering of that time through the words and images that came to me in a dream some years ago. It all begins with Christmas Eve…
On a cold December night
As the stars shine bright
Windowed faces of log houses
Flicker in candle light.
Warm quaint spaces
Crackling fire places
Kettles cooling beside once busy hearths
Shadowed now in evening shade.
In a time long forgot
People settle in their cots
While snow drifts gather
Ever higher along a man-made river.
Paths between cleared fields
Scarred by wagon wheel trenches
Now covered in utter white perfection
Stretch a lonely mile in twilight.
Forest branches creaking restless
Weight of ice and arctic breezes
Bring dormant trees to life
In clues of seasons past.
Doe and yearling forage
For a meal made scarce
Steaming breath releasing
A drink of water from a thin veiled stream.
Everywhere, darkness lingers
Stilled by a shining celestial body
Gleaming high above in an eastern sky
While immigrant farmers dream a yuletide scene.
A story told since youth
Son of God born a humble birth
In a land of palm fronds and sand
A king of heaven on earth.
Simple men tending their flocks
Wise men stirring from their dreams
Flee to a simple manger in Bethlehem
To see a Savior who would be king.
Now, looking back upon tradition
Christians telling in succession
This same story passing generations
As our founding is self evident
Remains for us a destiny
Like an American yuletide legacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment