Still, I always come as one who lived here,
Who knew the scrubby oak brush bench,
The orchards, and the miry pond--
This thirty years of camouflage
Somehow cannot blind the heart
Or weaken the mystic power of the mountains--
That silent solid stability of stone.

Then,
I was so drawn to this:
This broader, faster, larger world.
To know,
To be,
If only to look toward--
That was life.

But now,
With a full career,
A family and a farm,
I would rather be there--
There in the old brown hills;
The scent of budding cottonwood
In this blustery storminess of May,
Dirt on my fingers,
Mud on my boots,

And sweetened with memories
Well beyond the honesty of now.

05/10/2010

Author's Note: Reaction to Ogden near Weber State.

Posted on 05/11/2010
Copyright © 2025 Leonard M Hawkes