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Everything Broad Ripple HomearrowRandom Ripplings Homearrow2018 04 13arrowColumn

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Converted from paper version of the Broad Ripple Gazette (v15n08)
Right in my Own Backyard - ". . . .The Best of Life is Mine" - by Brandt Carter
posted: Apr. 13, 2018

Right in my Own Backyard header

". . . .The Best of Life is Mine"

At Broad Ripple by
James Whitcomb Riley

Ah, Luxury! Beyond the heat
And dust of town, with dangling feet,
Astride the rock below the dam,
In the cool shadows where the calm
Rests on the stream again, and all
Is silent save the waterfall, -
bait my hook and cast my line,
And feel the best of life is mine.

No high ambition may I claim -
angle not for lordly game
Of trout, or bass, or wary bream -
black perch reaches the extreme
Of my desires; and "goggle-eyes"
Are not a thing that I despise;
A sunfish, or a "chub," or "cat" -
A "silver-side" - yea, even that!

In eloquent tranquility
The waters lisp and talk to me.
Sometimes, far out, the surface breaks,
As some proud bass an instant shakes
His glittering armor in the sun,
And romping ripples, one by one,
Come dallying across the space
Where undulates my smiling face.

Forever sweet to ear and eye,
Forever tenderly begun -
Forever new and never done.
Thus lulled and sheltered in a shade
Where never feverish cares invade,
I bait my hook and cast my line,
And feel the best of life is mine.

Riley wrote these words over
100 years ago about our village.



Brandt Carter, artist, herbalist, and naturalist, owns Backyard Birds at 2374 E. 54th Street. Visit her web site www.feedbackyardbirds.com. Email your bird questions to Brandt@BroadRippleGazette.com




brandt@broadripplegazette.com
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