Round Iron Markers

Abstract

30 Round Iron Markers Out tramping fall-plowed fields in April rain, I stepped a fence to neighbor's woods, a grove I hadn't walked before, in memory. Leaves and branches kept me from the muddy floor of a path cut clean between two stands— one young trees, one just scrub, and none worth cutting, save in a winter pinch. So the woodsmen left it all—just worth standing. But then an intuition snagged my cap, like the eyes of a cat or a barn owl watching when you come home late and chore in darkness: It was nothing, nothing but the iron face of wagon wheels, standing by the woodlot gate as if some man in overalls had stopped a bit to rest his team, then got bewildered, lost his place, time, maybe his wife. The wagon stood and waited till the wood had burned away, decayed, leaving four iron wheels, still standing. Far more likely, you know, I know, it was junked by someone's son, too old to fix or be of use, left and not remembered, the iron not worth saving, the wheels only marking where the box had been. Every woodlot has its heap of bottles and tobacco tins in some back corner. Such rusted wheels as these are nothing more, but they mark nothing squarely yet. —William Jolliff 31 ...