Reuven Goldfarb when he lived on Wheeler’s Ranch in Sonoma County. Bill Wheeler took the photo in 1972
And now, about the fields that are laid stubble
by Summer’s end, I warble my Autumn lay.
Stanzaic forms have sometimes meant much trouble,
but I don’t feel too difficult today.
Farewells have all been said, and, like a rhyme,
returning, echoing “Once upon a time,”
the friends that once have left rejoice in double,
as if departure were returning’s seed,
as of returning were departure’s fruit.
and love the flame that new beloveds breed.
Yet now I look upon the barren ground,
quickened with rain, and then a flute
emblazons on the air a simple sound,
that makes them seem not very far away.
AHIMSA CHURCH
Equinox, 1972
Comments:
I wrote this poem while living at Wheeler’s Ranch, an open land community located on Coleman Valley Road between Occidental and the sea in northern California’s Sonoma County. The equinoctial days are times when summer visitors go home or move on to their next destination while permanent residents are returning from their outward voyages. The transition is a shifting balance point, and I believe this shift is reflected in the poem. Ahimsa is a Sanskrit word that means “non-violence.” Leaders of his largely pacifist community chose this title as its legal name, but it was generally known as Wheeler’s because Bill Wheeler opened this land he had purchased, then known as Sheep Ridge Ranch, to whomever wished to visit or reside there. It was a good haven for me, while it lasted.
Amici is Latin for “friends.” This poem was published in The Deronda Review: a magazine of poetry and thought, Vol. VIII, No. 2, 2020. One of the themes for that issue was “Seasons.”
