Small Town Girl (Poetry)

At heart I am a small town girl
I dream of sleepy sunlit streets
of cats on walls and kids at play
no sense of hurry in the day
a smile on every face one meets
no blot to spoil that perfect world.

If it exists (except in dreams
of tended lawns and flowerbeds
green hedges clipped, white-painted gates
a peaceful air that penetrates
each brick and stone as evening sheds
nostalgia’s shadows) such soft scenes

evoke a need to search again
and find a place where I belong
my chair beside a glowing hearth
a rose-hung porch, a flagstoned path
and woken by a blackbird’s song
to smell the garden after rain.