good neighbors can still dispute:
my grandma and mrs smith argued
year after year which farm owned
the fanning-mill which rotated twixt
the two places I never heard the
ins and outs of the conflict but
I do know this: when the
fearsome storms of `78 struck,
our barn east of the dairy blew
down there was only crawl space
to get inside; I and a friend snuck
under the precarious roof and eased
out two items, my dad's aluminum
canoe and a fanning mill; an hour
later the settling roof would have
splat us flat but now we know
which farm ended up with the
fanning mill, not that it had had
any use for fifty or more years
2022 Jacqueline Jackson