'Trying to become the forest'

Thetford, Vt., in 1912. Note the beautiful elm trees, now long gone.

"This hill
crossed with broken pines and maples
lumpy with the burial mounds of
uprooted hemlocks (hurricane
of ’38) out of their
rotting hearts generations rise
trying once more to become
the forest....''

From "A Walk in March,'' by Grace Paley (1922-2007), the famed short-story  writer. A native New Yorker, she moved to Thetford, Vt., in later life, where her second husband had a farmhouse. Thetford is a beautiful town on the Connecticut River, whose very fertile bottomlands still sustain some prosperous farmers. The town has drawn many celebrities to buy property there, in part because of the proximity of Dartmouth College, which is a few miles south on the New Hampshire side of the river.