This Town is Small

This town is small, is my town,

on the border of Nowhere

and “can’t get there from here,”

except you can, heading north

to someplace more enticing, and home again,

just passing through, a single stop

for gas and coffee and a lottery ticket,

if you’re feeling lucky in a luckless town,

yet, here we stay, complaining perhaps

about taxes and roads, pot-holes

and frost heaves, outsiders moving in,

forgetting, though, our own recent roots,

from away ourselves, and the weather, too,

too hot or cold or humid, complaints we share

over a mug of coffee down at Pete’s Place,

and a home-made muffin, fresh donuts on Fridays,

or something heartier, bacon and eggs,

home-fries, toast, and good conversation

with neighbors who, as we do, keep

to ourselves, minding our own business,

but lending a hand when it’s needed, expecting in return

only a hand lent and a story of how it used to be,

so changed, this town, from its glory days

of slate and furniture, Finns and Swedes

and transplants from somewhere else seeking work,

a place to call home, and like us who stay,

finding it here in this little town

on the border of Nowhere

and “can’t get there from here.”

Monson, ME

(Lake Hebron in foreground; Monson Pond in background)