by Fran Blake Smith

Apologies to Fran and all from the blog-keeper, who just discovered this poem that had been left as an unpublished draft, for two years!

“The place I live in is called the Northeast Kingdom.”

(author's note, Mark T. Creaven, a life lived backwards)

Well, where’s the king?

And does he reside with royal entourage

On a hardscrabble hill

Almost too rocky to farm?

What has this word “kingdom” to do with wealth?

And why is wealth reckoned in currency, not poetry?

Why indeed when on this Fall mornings

Kings and queens can look out the kitchen door

To see gossamer rising from emerald fields

And spot the early-turning leaves like jewels

Sprinkled by nature’s lavish hand around their property?

Their property.

Something to be said for that.

Our collective property, we Royals all:

Our Northeast Kingdom.

Fran Blake Smith

Wednesday Poets