Everyday

Every day one ought to "hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fin picture and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words." This quote from Goethe spoke to me. I had recently read a very good poem on our local Facebook group's post. (I grew up in Bradford PA) It  expressed a lot about why I love living where I do. I thought maybe you would enjoy it too. 

Hometown

I left you for warmth, but I missed the feel of your chill, your imprints left on window panes and

scarf bundled faces. I left you for the squawk of the seagulls, but I missed the call of the turkey,

its rapid gurgling waking up the sunrise. I left you for navel orange trees, but I missed seeing the

star-shaped pink Mountain Laurel, a carpet for the forest glen. I left you for the scent of the sea,

but I missed your pungent smell, wafting throughout town, its heavy scent left on clothing.

I wanted to permanently leave you for glamour and skyscrapers, but I couldn’t. I wanted to

ignore you, move out and never look back, but you wouldn’t let me. I thought you were boring,

your facades never changed, and you were even ugly at times – scarred, pockmarked like a

ruffian from an old mobster movie. You cried incessantly and clouded the joys of a sunny day.

Yet, not until I left then returned did I realize your charm and what you had given me: salmon-

colored roses and magenta lilacs in summer and slopes to ski in winter; nighttime noises like the

pumping beat of the power houses on the hillsides and the train as it whistled through the valley.

You let me relax and meditate within the reds and oranges of the maple leaves, without any

hurry. You showed me shade under the weeping willows, as tall as they are wide, and fields of

soft-white Queen Anne’s lace; finding cold streams filled with minnows and boulders large

enough to climb, I wandered off by myself, safely hidden among the hills, because you protected me.

Some made fun of you. They thought they were classier, more refined. They had traveled and

experienced worlds unknown to you. You were criticized and compared to what they had seen–

miles of seamless asphalt melting into the horizon, bright lights screaming for attention, bustling

congestion flowing on every sidewalk–but they offered no way to make you better. But maybe

you are fine the way you are: old and small and slow paced in a modern world– that is your

appeal. And though many have left you, the new ones have discovered your secrets:

Milk cows lumbering across the road, from field to barn,

Chirping crickets, bedded in the dewy grass, looking for mates,

Spotted fawns nibbling at the hundreds of crab apples dripping down from trees,

Sacred silence, at the summit of a cemetery, overlooking the broccoli tips of forest trees

grooming the sky, exudes the presence of a higher power.

You are the secret garden, ours to enjoy, naturally.

And though your name is not on my birth certificate, I think of you as mine.

Ann Hultberg is a retired high school English teacher and currently a composition instructor at the local university. Her degrees are in English and reading education and educational psychology. She writes nonfiction stories about her family, especially focusing on her father’s escape from Budapest, Hungary, to the United States.