The Birds of St. Marys

Birdsong serenade -
pomegranate tea cooling
on the veranda.

The town quietly stirs.
Early risers stroll alone;
the mourning dove coos.

Red-head woodpecker
circles the magnolia's trunk
seeking breakfast grubs.

Mockingbird evades
its child's incessant pursuit,
pleading to be fed.

A schnauzer pulling
her master along the street;
she wants those squirrels.

On the picket fence
a red cardinal perches -
summing up the day.

mjs 6/15/08

Where home used to be

I came of age in a place
where cattle and chickens
eclipsed the human population;
where green fields and fence posts
made a forceful horizontal statement.
And though I chafed with desire
to run beyond the pasture lands;
the oaks and pines and birches,
part of their peace had been planted
in my chest. Somehow,
I felt this place was sacrosanct;
would somehow always be the same,
even though it had long been forsaken.

I left in 1971, and the folks sold out in 74
to some guy from NYC who paid ten times
what they had in 63.
He moved the house we lived in
to build one of his own.
Tore down the dilapidated barns and sheds.
Left the workshop Dad had built for a failed venture.
Took down the barbed-wire fencing,
uprooted the apple trees -
and never, as far as I could tell,
planted a garden.

Still home was there;
intact in spirit if not in form.
But it was the surrounding development
that detonated my senses into disbelief.
Tract mansions and subdivisions
spreading like fungus everywhere;
consuming the meadows,
the forests, the occasional shack
that nestled inside my memory.
When I found the steep circle
to the boat launch blocked off,
it was as if the mind said - Off limits!
You cannot go here anymore.

I backed up - never to return;

gave in to the present.

© 2002 Melissa Songer