It was in the garden state
I drew my first breath.
Family ties beckoned
when I was less than one,
and south we went
to Myakka of Manatee.
Edison’s Winter retreat
looked to be a brighter beacon
when I was but three or four,
and there our family moved
until the light turned dim
when I was around ten.
Deeper south we went
to beautiful springs.
I reveled in the waters there
during my next eight years.
Though both my parents were born in Florida,
I never felt a sense of belonging among the locals,
where the place of the nativity was thicker than blood
for one New Jersey born southerner
in a sleepy southern coastal town.
in a sleepy southern coastal town.
So out West, I went as a young man
on a gold rush whim,
to stake my claim
and finding no rainbow’s end.
Five years in the prospect of things,
there was nothing
in the golden state to hold me.
I returned to beautiful springs
to rest but for a spell,
and in the process,
I ended up avoiding Hell.
Then to the hills of rocky top, I sojourned,
staying there for seventeen years.
One day things looked peachier further south,
but over time things were less than peachy.
In a decade and two
ties were unalterably broken,
and I retreated to the foothills
where the old bluetick
coonhound roams.
At times,
I am still pulled asunder
by the love of oceans and mountains.
But I know it is here,
in the foothills amidst the smoke
that suits my bones.
So, remain here I will,
as long as I can,
till rapture springs
or shadows fall.
Of all places
I never should have left.
In these parts it is;
I come either to rise or rest.
