December 13, 1978 - East Village - Journal

I was born in Boston.

Raised on Falmouth Foresides
And the South Shore.
In 1976
I left for good.
New York bound,
Two years now
Yet I miss New England

The White Mountains
The Maine Coast
Old Orchard Beach,
Portland's Eastern Promenade
The two old schooners rotting off Wicassett

Decaying river towns;
Lowell, Manchester, Saco, Chicopee, White River Junction
Beaches,
Nantasket, Wollaston, Horseneck Beach, Truro,
Cape Ann, Gloucester, Marblehead, the Beverly Salem Bridge

Lobstah, fried clams, Italian Sandwiches, and damned Chowdah.

From Lake Champlain across the Green Mountains
To the Connecticut River

Over the White Mountains
On the The Kancamagus Highway

Down to Newport and Across the Block Island.
New England. Oh New England.

Bridgeport, New Haven, New London.
We are not New York.

South of Boston

The Blue Hills
Swimming in the Quincy Quarries,
Tramping to the top of Chickatawbut
At 517 feet to the east
Big Blue to the west
635 feet.
Nothing taller from the Hudson to Mount Cadillac in Acadia
Just Blue Hill Tower
The hills of my youth
Of my teen years
Sex with Linda Imhoff
At Eighteen atop Rattlesnake Hill.
No forests
Fifteen generation trees
Stone farm walls
Tumbled by the frost
Bog ponds and swamps
My home town.
Forever New England.