Tuesday, April 09, 2019

Very "Fitchburgy" (Fitchburg MA)

- houses behind almost any stone structure.
Westminster Hill Road in Fitchburg MA
4/09/2019
A bit of stone wall at the edge of Development,
Is it atypical of the area
To find something like this,
Along some present day property line?

I mean both the Development 
And that stone wall that "ends in" 
A flat top triangular boulder,
On some smaller supporting cobbles,
Something about it suggestive
Of a rattlesnakes head,
The curve that resembles an supraocular scale
And perhaps an eye below that:
"I swear," he writes to me, 
"That one on top of the flat one has eyes too!"
And at this point I know where he means,
Because he's been showing me example after example
Of stones chosen and placed "just so"
As if these stones were meant to be seen as having eyes,
As if the "Strong Looker," the Uktena were looking at you
At the beginning of a row of stones:
Nearby are other serpentine walls
And sometimes short segments
 - could that be a Manitou stone
Almost touching that short row?
Closer:
Step back out,
Observe the water feature
And ponder a bit about
How the stones might relate to it,
How a Snake row of stones
Fits in better with Indigenous land use
Rather than something to do with cows or sheep and all...

A "road-side attraction" I'll throw in, photo'd by Paul:

5 comments :

Curtiss Hoffman said...

Tim -
Some years ago Peter recorded a site on Parker Hill in Fitchburg, west of Westminster Rd. Is this the same site? If not, can you geolocate it more precisely?

pwax said...

It is not the same.

PTBO said...

The bottom picture is from McIntyre Rd in Fitchburg. There are two if them oddly enough, this is the McIntyre Rd that connects with Stickney Rd, not Alpine Rd. The pics above it are off of Westminster Hill Rd, at the more eastern end, into the woods on the northern side of the street.

PTBO said...

I will definitely get a precise geolocation for these features, but a non precise placement would be the eastern side of Alpine Hill in Fitchburg, between Westminster Hill Road and Ashburnham Hill Road. It is also along what is an unnamed steam (rank 1 headwater stream) leading to the Nashua River at around Sheldon St.

PTBO said...

42.5880317, -71.8190817