Remembering West Knoxville

This neighborhood was carved out neatly,
Cut from a field on which the cattle
Grazed in pastoral peace
And raised their heavy heads
To taste the flurried snow
And take notice of the red flannel jackets
Of the hunters winding outward,
Crossing the fields toward their game
Which hid themselves along the grey, worn fencerails
Now removed and replaced
With surveyors lines
Of metes and bounds and miles of tape
Laid out on grids across the old pasture lines
From which the residential tapestry
Was sewn and stitched and embroidered
Until the antique agrarian past
Was forgotten but for some old timers
Like me, who can drive through the streets
Past the close-cropped lawns
And red brick houses, row by row,
And still remember the drowsy cattle
Lowing from the fields,
Calling for their evening feed,
Ghostly spectres rambling across time's boundaries
Only noticed by we few, growing older, the bleached bones
Of our memories now fading through the darkening light.