Autumn Fields

He said his legs were stiff and sore
For he had gone some twenty-eight miles,
And he'd walked through by watergaps
And fences and gates and stiles.
He said he'd been by Logan's woods,
And up by Walton's branch and Simms,
And there were sticktights on his clothes
And little dusts of seeds and stems.
And then he sat down on the steps,
And he said the miles were on his feet.
For some of that land was tangled brush,
And some was plowed for wheat.
The rabbits were thick where he had been,
And he said he'd found some ripe papaws.
He'd rested under a white oak tree,
And for his dinner he ate red haws.
Then I sat by him on the step
To see the things that he had seen.
And I could smell the shocks and clods,
And the land where he had been.