My Town

My Town

Like an an old person with some major surgery,
Belpre has its small areas of clotted memory
continuing, in the humdrum way,
the habits of its formative years.

Graceful homes by the river
are kept up and re-painted.
Blocks here and there harbor stately maples and walnuts.
Old homes, some kept up, some in disarray
line the street grid.
The avenues are now either thoroughfare or residential.
But it’s still quiet,
as if setting in a spell,
with one hundred miles of forest
between here and any metropolis.

At times I just set on my front porch and murmur
“one hundred miles of trees,”
as the sun sets through them.