Discombobulated

 Discombobulated 

John Clare Stokes

When the bottle tree, the quail trellis, the rope swing, the syrup shed, the swing were at Pilgrim's Rest farm in Crawfordville, there was an order about them, a place, they fit. In the selling of the home place in 2000 and the year long moving so many years arranging, the tree and trellis and other items from a life were hastily set out without the careful thought. Williston never seemed to fit. The spacing was off. It wasn't the same. With the selling of the Williston farm in 2008 and the subsequent moving again, the accumulation of a life was scattered to my home, my sisters, my brothers, further diluting the place they held. The tools in the shed in disarray, the syrup mill stored, things rusting and rotting away. No place else to go. They seemed to lament the leaving Pilgrim Rest. It never should of happened. But it did. Slowly I’ve tried to reconstruct the mill and kettle, the bell, the many amaryllis scattered about, the split rails. With my passing I fear it all shall fall in strangers hands, with no clue as to their origin.