Today's poem pretty well tells its own story, I think.
The hills I'm referring to are in the extreme southern portion of Illinois, an area that was sometimes referred to as "Little Egypt," perhaps still is.
I grew up there. With military service, schooling and marriage, I left that area, but for many years we returned at least once each year. Now those kinds of travel are pretty much in abeyance ... as my orbit remains quite close to my present home ...
Still, I travel back there in my thoughts ... and sometimes in my dreams ... particularly during those times when the peach trees are in blossom across the hills.
My timing, I'm afraid, is a bit off ... the blossoms likely have come and gone by this time ... but I have been thinking again of those beautiful peach trees "in full array" ... how the hills seemed so alive with them ... so inviting ... and, oh, how I miss seeing them in person!
The poem:
HILLS
Rolling smokey-green hills
keep calling me back to my
beginnings, where generations
of my people scratched out
a living, a sprinkling of small
victories for those, a stubborn
and proud people, laboring
to the cadence of the seasons,
while I, like so many others,
drifted away, lured by dreams
of a better world somewhere
just beyond the harsh horizon,
making a promise to return;
and now, with the peach trees
in full array, those hills are
calling again, and I must go.
© 2006
(Originally published in Capper's)
***
Today's word:
arrayAfterthoughts ... in response to your comments:
Thank you, Featheredpines, for that comment ... I hope the blossoms arrive soon in your neck of the woods ... and all will be well again. Here, we're enjoying the pear blossoms, but still waiting for the flowering dogwoods to burst forth.
I'm glad we're on the same page today, Vicki ... though you were posting an autumn poem (one of my favorite seasons, too) ... and mine was about its opposite number. The point is, I think ... and as you're saying ... we may wander far from those original roots, but we never escape the pull of those hills ... that, of course, produces mixed feelings, but I relish those early memories stored up with those beginnings, and I feel that you do, too.
Beautiful comment, Helen ... beautiful ... and thank you for sharing it with us.
I'm glad you like the poem, Marti ... and hope you are enjoying the great surprise those many flowers bring to you with the advent of spring ... which, I agree, does always seem so short.
4 comments:
Your poem reminds me of the flowering dogwoods. The azalea, rhodedenron and crabapple trees. I too, long for the rolling green hills. Out here it's still dusty dry and the only green still the pines... What a lovely image your poem evokes.
It seems we are in sync today, Mr. Brimm. I've just done a blog post for Poetry Week, and included in it is an old poem of mine about the pull of the hills from my childhood in West Virginia. My thoughts, though, return there in the fall. Like you, I have wandered too far from those hills, and I can't go back. Lovely poem, as always.
Yours,
Vicki
Bravo, Bob! Beautiful poem about a beautiful place that calls me back, too. It's the hills and trees that call me. It's the peach orchards in bloom. It's where the Ozarks begin and one of the best kept secrets!
I love this poem. There are so many flowers where I live and the spring is so short, every year I am surprised all over again.
Marti
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