Many years ago I was alone in a house lost in thought looking down at a hay field in the Catskill mountains. I could see McCumber Farm, the distant Armstrong fields, and the steep silhouette of Dry Brook Ridge. An autumn breeze came in from the treetops, and as if in a dream - a man I knew appeared - slowly dragging a large wooden rowboat with a rope behind him through the tall grass. I recognized the old boat – now quite rotten – from my childhood. I watched transfixed as the bow cut through the dry grass, leaving a wake of flattened grass as it floated through the waving field. 

At that moment I loved that boat and loved the circling turkey buzzards. I loved the dry naples yellow of the grass. I loved that man and the hum of a distant chainsaw. I even loved my own loneliness. I hurried to help old John Asher drag that boat on its way to the burn pile at the bottom of the field.

                        - Chris Martin