My Beautiful Vermont

Vermont

  So this poem was inspired while I was camping. I revised it three times before I finally felt it was ready to be posted. I wrote this with the feeling of home in my heart, you know when you think of your home and you get all the sights, smells and memories of it? That is what I put in here. I'm actually a transplant living here in Vermont, I was born in New Hampshire. I spent most of my childhood here in Vermont and have always considered it home. 
  As I was sitting in the woods the admiration that I felt for the state that had been home for so long, the beauty the way life is up here, bubbled up into a poem. Some of it's deep with a few funny bits of Vermont humor thrown in, because it wouldn't be a poem about Vermont with out local humor threaded in. 
  I hope you all enjoy this poem, and it makes you think of home. What images, smells and sounds do you see when you think of home?

 

My Beautiful Vermont

To this state that I call home, I dedicate this meager poem.

This place is small with mountains, rolling hills and flowing stream,

it's greener than the greenest realm.

Sunsets of vivid pinks and golds are brighter still,

against summer leaves and evergreens on the mountains and waves of hills.

For we take care to cultivate and clean the forest, meadows and rivers too;

all the places with singing leaves and birds and water filled with trout and perch.

We keep them growing with special care, for all the children we will bear.

All the people that reside in the valleys and mountainsides know these sights:

old bearded men in plaid, guiding oxen upon a wooden sled, with gentle whip in old worn hands;

A pair of horses hauling logs from the forest, through muddy trails ankle deep,

to a landing where men labor for firewood their families need for winters long keep;

roadside garden stands, alone on long roads, standing full and proud in warm harvest months,

drop money in the jar.

This is where the hermit thrush sings,

Vermont's land is our heart and pride,

for this is where tough Yankees reside.

This is where we weather nor'easters and other winter storms.

Where home smells of burning wood seeping, into the walls,

from the wood stove radiating heat, to ward away the winter chill.

Where we see wool plaid jackets, overalls- warm clothes hanging in the hall.

This state, this place is always our home, no matter where we roam,

it's in our hearts, blood and soul.

When we smell wet Earth, pine or fall,

all our memories come back, with sights of where we played,

in trees, fields and lakes, where the air is clean, and we were wild.

Children, always running, all the day and stalking fireflies in the twilight.

In all the seasons we ran, through snow and mud,

where the axes thud, splitting wood or making way.

We Vermonters know, where the maple syrup 'grows',

where minnows will kiss our toes,

and the best spots to watch the seasons as they march through.

Oh, the seasons, we have them all, from spring to winter- and one more,

mud, when the snow melts and ground thaws,

 roads sink and form deep rutts

that rattle and shake our cars.

We, and we alone know the land we use is sacred,

for all our hopes and dreams, our sweat and blood

have seeped deep into the land we cut and shape.

All our sorrows, all our joys, live here, where we're born, where we die.

To the flatlanders who want to stay,

you'll NEVER know the love we pay to this land that is our blood.

Massachusetts, you may visit, but go home,

for this is where Vermonters roam.

This place, this land is what we know, what we think

when we think HOME.