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Many of you may know Frank Gould, Co-Chair (with Paul Coats) of the MRG project, friendly MRG promoter at the Leb Farmers Market, and someone working hard to solve the problem of access at both ends of our Mascoma River Greenway . . . trying to make connections
Connections Count
The river twists itself,
coiled like an upset snake
beneath the railtrail bridge.
I watch it slither away,
beyond the oaks and maples
which shadow grasslands,
after slipping east through
neighborhoods and woods.
I walk beyond the bridge
along the rail corridor
where trains at one time
carried freight, passengers
and American life into
the valleys of our village.
Today, the trains are gone.
Its corridor is transformed,
derailed, cleared and paved;
a greenway to give locals
access to their community,
to their health, to their self,
to their American life.
Today they find this path
for comfort and calm,
for daily, scenic exercise.
They stroll their new-born;
bicycle with their kids;
walk to a grocery store
and home with filled bags.
They’ve found their walk
or ski to movies, to eat out,
or to their jobs and back.
Rush-hour traffic absent.
They visit friends they meet,
talk about the friendly walk,
and wonder why the trail
closes at dysfunction junction?
Why shopping malls exist
only well beyond trail’s end?
How might we reach out, they
ask, to unfold our community?
Frank Gould 2017
The Mascoma River Greenway 