A Walk with You

We ramble along up-hill through the woods, following
No path but knowing our direction generally,
And letting fall what may we come up against the worn
Fact that all this green is second growth—reaches of wall
Knee-high keep appearing among low moments of leaf;
Clearings, lit aslant, are strewn across old foundations.
This is of course New England now and even the brook,
Whose amplified whisper off on the right is as firm
A guide as any assured blue line on a roadmap,
Can never run clear of certain stones, those older forms
Of ascription of meaning to its murmuring, as
We hear it hum O, I may come and I may go, but…
Half-ruined in the white noise of its splashing water.