The Two Of Them Poem by Raymond Farrell

Otter creek
At least the stretch
I know intimately
(There's something reassuring
About knowing someone
Or something
So well
That your heart beats
In time with theirs)
The water gushes loudly in Spring
Two beaver damns
About 200 yards apart
Back up a serious volume of water
Which overflows
After the snow melts
And roars through
A narrow opening
Between rocky outcroppings
That jut out from both banks
Almost meeting in the middle
But in Summer
When the sky is a soft pink
And the sun
Is well into the West
It is pleasant to sit a while
On the bank
And be soothed
By the soft gurgling
Of the water passing
Between the rocky outcrops
And around exposed stones
In the creek bed
If you then cross over
To the Southwest bank
And enter the green wood
You will be drawn along
The dominant thoroughfare
Used by all comers
You will go south
About half a mile
Wherever the earth
Along the path is moist
You will see
The footprints
Of your fellow wayfarers
A deer's hove print
A wolf's paw print
What transpired between them
We don't know
Perhaps nothing
The mind does tend
To conjure up possibilities
When not occupied
With serious matters
There are honeysuckles everywhere
And sumac trees here and there
But the prickly ash bushes
Have run wild
Now that cattle
No longer graze here
The path will veer to the West
The bush becomes dense and humid
But after a couple hundred yards or so
You will break into a clearing
And there they are
The two of them
A brother and sister
A husband and wife
Who knows
But they are entwined
In each other's embrace
Two majestic pines
Whose girth tells
Of decades of growth
Fifty years ago
I would climb up them
And sit looking
At the village
In the distance
But now
It is enough
To see them again
And to know
They are still both standing
Here together
And doing well.