When I die and crossover to the other side, I will find myself driving my 1986 Ford Ranger, 235 V-6, on the back roads of Maine with the windows down on a July afternoon with the sun and shadows stretching across new-mown meadows and cows standing in groups and I will inhale deeply the perfume of manure and hay. Pink and white cumulus clouds will be towering like giants over the fields and hills, and daylilies and Queen Anne’s Lace will line both sides of the road up and down and around every corner. There will be old, falling-down barns and trim, well-kept farmhouses, and I will wonder about the lives lived there for generations; the parents and grandparents grown old and passed on to the other side long ago. I will be constantly amazed at the beauty of life, the beauty of death, and the beauty of the world. And I will be happy. And the road will go on forever.
-Lincolnville, ME 7/21/26
