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.