Jerimoth Hill

    by Tom Chandler

    812 feet， the highest point in Rhode Island

    You will not recognize any bald knob of granite

    or sheer cliff face silhouetted against clouds，

    in fact， you won't realize you're anywhere at all

    except by this bullet-riddled sign by the road

    that curves through these scraggled third growth

    woods that was once a grove of giant pines

    that were cut down for masts that were used

    to build ships to sail away to the rest of the world

    from the docks of Providence Harbor， their holds

    filled with wool from the sheep that grazed

    in the field that had once been the giant pines

    till the shepherds died off and the applers took over

    and grew orchards of Cortlands and Macintosh

    Delicious to fill the holds of the ships that sailed

    to the rest of the world from the docks of Providence

    Harbor with masts made from the giant pines till

    the orchards moved west along with everything

    else to less glacial land and the fields became

    overgrowth of berries and hobblebush crisscrossed

    by walls made of stones that had slept beneath

    one inch of topsoil for twelve thousand years

    till the settlers found when they tried to plant crops

    that this was a country that grew only rocks which

    they made into walls to pen in the sheep that provided

    the wool that filled the holds of the ships that sailed

    to the rest of the world from the docks of Providence Harbor.