My favorite poem: The Hill Road by Maude Wheeler Pierce

The Hill Road
by Maude Wheeler Pierce

 

Just to take a dusty road
And climb a jagged hill
To rest beneath a cherry tree
And hear a blackbird trill,

To plunder wild red berries
Where my slow steps part the grass
And count the ground bird’s sudden flight
A rapture as I pass;

To see an old-time farmhouse
With a broad door standing wide
And know that love will welcome
And bid me pause inside;

To dream when shadows lengthen
And the fragrant night is still –
Save the frogs’ sweet-silver singing
Save the cry of the whip-poor-will;

To dream in flooded perfume
Of lilac, rose and dew
‘Till days between are blotted out
And only this is true.

 

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Notes: Maude Wheeler Pierce was my great-grandmother on my mom’s side. The Hill Road was included in a little blue book of her poetry – “Dream Burdens” – published by The Driftwind Press (North Montpelier, Vermont) in 1929. It has longĀ been an important “family poem” and I felt it was time to share it with the world!

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