SHELBURNE (SOMEWHERE IN THE WEST)

We all from time to time to Shelburne come,
to limits well defined, an absolutely welcome
stretch of place from riverbed to woody clump
and back along a circuitous route one mind
around, an absolute no less determined
because so well undefined, where we've our bit
of morals for our families and friends,
proprieties and, on occasion, we've been found
to have our little inside jokes and petty slurs.

From time to time we visit Shelburne as it was and as
it always is, a summer place, winter cabin, an autumn hunt
or spring escape—its seasons definite keep pace with how and
when and why we choose to come and go to Shelburne where
we're welcomed with a smile and waved goodbye with tears
that say please do return whether often soon or now and
then sometime down the road some moment of a year.
Shelburne is a lovely wonder half a whim from town,
an ideal place for picnicking or life, a chat, a spat,
a place to make-up with your spouse, a land
on which to build that dreamhouse and plant a gate.

There are those who say that Shelburne is a narrow place;
and some are adamant that Shelburne is a fence
for lies (no doubt it's true, no doubt it's so; as true
as saris and Kimonos are a stretch of silk, the product
of a worm well-fed and long-since dead)—they too
as everyone from time to time to Shelburne come.
We each and every one from time to time to Shelburne
come to democratic beauty, vacation in its novelty to tame
the awesome spirit of a dream, to rest awhile safe from grief
and pray against reality a prayer of doubt and disbelief.
A dream so wise and small, that's Shelburne town
where nothing is at all; and all is of absolutely no import;
where nothing is there's nothing to be found or gained,
and we've absolutely nothing, nothing all around.

We like that Shelburne has a park its kids well tend.
We appreciate the gardens where children sing and play
their arias and violins then walk as others dance.
They sport and joust with logic as they laugh a loud pretence
where tots will build new cities with their blocks and clay.
We walk among them smiling almost every day
whenever we are there in Shelburne town.
And we kind of like it as it is: it doesn't matter much.
We like our Shelburne as it is; we like it awfully much.

No Shelburne's real—I confess—none you can visit in;
It's only here, at home, with me and mine. It has no roads,
no politicians, and no crime, a kind of wimpydullsville place.
But if I take my quiet time to share Shelburne with a friend
or if I take my silent time to share Shelburne with my wife,
and if I share my Shelburne with my children every night,
then never demons, vandals, Huns nor hordes will ever touch
my Shelburne folk who ask you only awfully much
please do to Shelburne come when you have time—
it's a little off the beaten way, a little out of touch.

Please do to Shelburne come; it's easy night or day—
just close your eyes to think of such-and-such a way
when you've nowhere else to go, you've nothing else to do.
To Shelburne come—some careless night or day—please do.

© John Horváth, Jr

Commentary:

"SHELBURNE (SOMEWHERE IN THE WEST)" is an "ethnic poem" in disguise. My ethnic poetry focuses on immigrants who leave a homeland for "better pastures". The observation is that, when they arrive in those pastures, they find threatening bulls and, of course, bulls--t. What they then do is congregate in little villages of their own inside other cities. They rebuild their restaurants, newspapers, schools, churches and so on until they have their homeland again, then wonder why they are rejected by the native population. My "ethnic poems" find few homes. So the utopian safe haven is translated into our common desire for the perfect home — in the suburbs or a quaint village — which (as the form suggests) is very much prosaic. Our Shelburnes are not in heaven; they are marzipan and materialistic.