{"id":25327,"date":"2023-05-10T15:38:26","date_gmt":"2023-05-10T20:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.berkshirelinks.com\/?p=25327"},"modified":"2023-05-10T15:38:26","modified_gmt":"2023-05-10T20:38:26","slug":"oliver-wendell-holmes-sr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/oliver-wendell-holmes-sr\/","title":{"rendered":"Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Holmes Road<\/strong> in Pittsfield is named for <strong>Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr<\/strong>., the physician and poet who owned a vast tract where Canoe Meadows is now, about a mile south of where <strong>Herman Melville<\/strong> bought the farm he named <strong>Arrowhead<\/strong>, where he wrote Moby-Dick. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., best known for his long tenure on the U.S. Supreme Court &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/berkshires-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes_Sr_c1879-475x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"475\" height=\"600\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-25328\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The Housatonic at West Cornwall<br \/>\n<em>There\u2019s no tonic like the Housatonic.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Shadowed by green humped hills,<br \/>\nanglers cast into riffles<br \/>\nand pocket-water where trout<br \/>\nlinger among rocks, rising for flies<br \/>\nwith concentric ripple kisses.<br \/>\nCarefully they wade over cobbles<br \/>\nas swallow acrobats dart<br \/>\nand swoop for insects.<\/p>\n<p>Absorbed in the swash and roll<br \/>\nof the river as it seethes beneath<br \/>\nthe barn-red covered bridge,<br \/>\nthey briefly awaken to the rhythmic<br \/>\nrumble of tires on dry boards.<\/p>\n<p>Occasionally they pull magic<br \/>\nfrom the water like a dream hauled<br \/>\nfrom the depths of sleep, glistening<br \/>\nsilver, rainbowed or stippled in lucent<br \/>\npink, orange and yellow.<\/p>\n<p>But every shining, defiant beauty<br \/>\nis returned before drowning in air,<br \/>\nas PCBs secretly poison sediments<br \/>\nwhere the miracle electric age chemical<br \/>\nbringing \u201cgood things to life\u201d lies<br \/>\nlayered like fossils, marking a time<br \/>\nwhen fish were turned to forbidden<br \/>\nfruit contaminated by knowledge.<\/p>\n<p> <strong>Oliver Wendell Holmes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Photo: By Armstrong &amp; Co. (Boston, Mass.), &#8211; https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/pictures\/item\/2003654010\/, Public Domain, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=33849886<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Holmes Road in Pittsfield is named for Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., the physician and poet who owned a vast tract where Canoe Meadows is now, about a mile south of where Herman Melville bought the farm he named Arrowhead, where he wrote Moby-Dick. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., best known for his long tenure on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-literature","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}