It’s the kind you drive to,
If you know it’s there.
There’s no big welcome sign counting heads,
no little gas station bells,
No reason for a stranger to slow down.
Some maps quit saying our name
And sometimes the GPS will bring you close
Then lead you astray.
Still, our town is there
just quieter now.
What remains isn’t loud
But it lasts.
A few weathered buildings holding their ground,
old home places swallowed up in second growth,
a brick line here,
a porch step there,
and a windmill’s rusted bones...
Churches stay the steadiest.
Some are still gathering a faithful few
And the graveyards speak plain
names repeating like a hymn
family ties set down in stone.
You can find the old rail line
even if the trains don’t stop anymore;
The depot is gone
But listen long enough
And you can hear a whistle in the distance
boots on a wooden platform
Like the past still knows the way back.
The land endures;
pines rising where mills once stood,
deer crossing what used to be schoolyards,
The creek's still running,
Red clay's still staining shoes,
nature laying a quiet cover over what was built;
And the ones who stay
or the ones who go back
Do it for something stronger than convenience.
Memory, maybe
Legacy, maybe
Just knowing this place still matters.
And the ones who left
carry our town in their bones,
bring it out at reunions,
turning pages of faded photos,
telling their grandkids, that’s where I’m from
then coming home now and then
to lay flowers,
to visit the church where vows were said,
to sit where a porch used to be,
and listen to the wind in the trees.
Our town isn’t bustling
and it isn’t thriving the way cities measure it;
But it endures
in memory
in story
in spirit
And sometimes,
That’s good enough.
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