Rachel Baldwin - Wanderlust

I thought I'd left New York.
Left the dingy air, the grey landscape, the honking cars.
Left the grating accents, the cast-downward faces -
Those huddled masses our Matriarch welcomes daily.
I thought I'd left the Big Apple
Baked with my swirling memories in a dark, cold pie.
All those years spent hating that place
And I'd give my right arm to go back.
My renaissance, if you will, of the mind
Turns my thoughts around to yesteryear.
I remember seeing my first change of seasons
Up on Bear Mountain and at West Point.
I played Florence Nightingale at Fort Schuyler
And bandaged my imaginary love's wounds.
My greatest friendships were formed at school
In Levittown
And at Marshall Field, where we were stationed.
I can see my last Mohican, standing still in the brush,
Awaiting his own rebirth between the pages I read
At Cooperstown in the fall.
My heart is a poet's walk away
And just around the corner in my soul.

Rachel Baldwin

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/wanderlust-10/