Hills of Home

I wrote this poem in 2005 when I first felt the call to move back to my Kentucky roots. I have pulled it out once more to share in the hope that within the next year I will be back in the region where my ancestors lived and are buried and where I feel truly "at home and at peace."

In the summers of her youthful past,

She walked barefoot through the long bladed grass

That grew along the honey suckled hills of

Her Old Kentucky Home.

And the perfumed air that filled her lungs

Brought a spark of life into her infant soul

Nourished by the wild berries she watched ripen and grow

Into cobblers and homemade ice cream

For summers’ eves with lightening bugs aglow.

But the robin in spring and red bird in winter,

Chirped a call heard deep within her,

To trade her Sunday shoes that walked the straight and narrow path

For sparkling, glass slippers that yearned to roam

In search of love and adventure far from her Old Kentucky Home.

And romance blossomed among the garden paths of Versailles

And the Left Bank of Paris.

But the slippers faded into shimmering moonlight on the Seine,

So she found garden clogs to work the terrain

To build love and contentment with a home of her own

Amid the honey suckled vines of her Old Kentucky Home.

But the robin in spring and red bird in winter

Chirped a call heard deep within her,

To follow her love to Eldorado and the Seven Cities of Gold

Promised in stories and myths of old.

When that love withered and died in the desert heat,

She donned hiking boots to retreat

With her new love to the lush, green woodlands aside ocean dunes

 Amid quiet streams filled with salmon and the call of the loon.

Left alone in Eden by death’s early knell,

She felt her paradise turning to hell.

But she found solace for her soul biking the salty sea shore

And donned dancing shoes for music and loved once more.

But the strong winds in summer and heavy rains in winter,

Drowned love once more and sent her

Back to the rooted vines that climbed high on the hills

Of her Old Kentucky Home.

Now, in the autumn of her years she roams barefoot once more,

To the song of the robin in spring and red bird in winter

That chirp the secret of unconditional love rooted deep within her

And spreading wide across the hills of her Old Kentucky Home.