In The Fields Of Chateuagay Poem by Paul Amrod

Traveling through my memory to my earlier days
I was tying my sneakers and my childhood reappeared
Once upon a time in back of my elder's house
I enjoyed springing like a fawn playing a musketeer
Playing hide and seek with the neighboring girls
and stealing a kiss underneath our creaky porch.
Life was new and I was always full of joy and amazed
Enjoying my yoo-hoo from Yogi every ounce
With my two younger brothers we'd soon premiere
playing baseball together and a ball I'd scorch.
Running the bases on a field of our own praised
by my Daddy who was a catcher himself in his years.
Picking wild flowers and making some gorgeous bouquets
frolicking so innocently through the open frontier.
When the maple trees showed their autumnal foliage
the intensity of the pigment presented another sphere.
Later when winter blew its squalls and snows did accumulate
the syrup then would drip which mother poured on our porridge.
Father then plowed the driveway and made a ten foot ridge
We boys then took steaming water with our hockey skates
and drenched the hill and it froze into an igloo.
Then we would grab a shovel and dig an entrance and we revered
our Eskimo's abode and began to jumble and celebrate.
Every Christmas we'd decorate with bells and a hullabaloo
when Santa's elves came to visit and played a round of bridge.
Sometimes our giant mountain of ice didn't easily disappear
With the chill of March many northern queens made a pilgrimage
to leave spring waiting in the corridors for its debut.
When the glaciers did melt and the first blossoms appeared
we spoke with Chloris as she brought the showers of May.
Soon the awakening of the Earth became morning's dew
christening the Nature with an auspicious and vernal display.
With the horizons so endless in the valley of the Saint Lawrence
I glanced at the rising moon as the dusk crawled over the veneer.
To the south were the lakes and the foothills of the Adirondacks
with pine trees galore and a paradisal enthralling atmosphere
where shooting stars could be marveled and held in reverence.
Returning to the community only three miles from Quebec
we brothers chased each other and how boisterous we cheered.
To be born in this wilderness far from the heart of society
we sprouted upward like weeds in the fields of Chateaugay.
In our deepest imaginations we conjured our dreams so dear
to enrich our intuitions and fill us all with vibrancy.