Babson’s Farm Quarry
It’s been many years since the last man was blinded
by steel from a hammer or sliver of stone.
It’s been a long time since a hand or an arm
was blasted away at the Babson’s Farm quarry.
It’s been many years since our bedrock was cut
for bridges and buildings and roadways and streets.
It’s been a long time since steam engines have fired;
when monuments shaped from our granite rose tall.
It’s been many years and the hammers are silent;
the cutting and hauling and lifting are done.
It’s been a long time and the workers are resting;
this gift they’ve bequeathed us – this jewel in the sun.
Marty Luster
Good Morning Gloucester 
Nice. Love the poem, the punched up green, and the pattern on the water in the foreground. Definitely worth clicking twice to go to the extra big size. Spring sure has sprung. Stuck my hand in some quarry water this weekend and swimmable temp. Not this quarry, no swimming allowed although you would find Sue and me down on that low shelf front right in 1986 on an early warm summer day. We were down there and it might have been last week of classes at Gloucester High School because we could hear them coming through the woods. They had already stripped off and went right off the edge of the cliff and got a few jumps in before the ranger put a stop to it.
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I loved this, Marty. Thanks for sharing your talent with us.
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thank you for your poem, and a lovely start to this wet day. Yeah for the rain.
D
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Very nice shot, Marty — after reading your poem it occurred to me that you might enjoy a book called “Hammers on Stone” by Barbara H. Erkkila (pub. by Peter Smith, Gloucester, 1987), which recounts the history of the stone-cutters of Cape Ann. If Toad Hall doesn’t have it, Dogtown Books might.
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Just beautiful…thank you!
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