Dear New England

As the trains came and went
so too did the hope of a new love
and the promise of an adventure. 

And with the wash of the waves upon unfamiliar beaches
came intimacy with the ocean
and the sands of time that would transform me
from the inside out. 

With the leaves that began as green
an unknown painter turned them to red
and adorned me with brighter shades of
awe for the possibility of who I could become. 

As the ships sailed in with a crisp winter wind behind their sails
The fire of novelty settled into a cool
appreciation for the romance of comfort. 

And the brisk whispers of change
In the concrete streets of a warming spring city
the wonder melted to reveal the underlying knowingness of the consequence of a prodigious love. 

When the circle of a year had met its completion
and your sun warmed my skin once again
I saw your hands at work and for the first time,
I cursed you.

But as you cracked me open
I breathed your salt-stained air in through my wounds
and I thanked you for wreckage that could only come
from a beautiful boat you built me. 

And I looked across the horizon
as the now familiar waves kissed my toes
and I saw how far I’d traveled
and I felt the brilliance of you. 

But I could not remain in you forever
because you’d done your work,
broke what needed breaking and built all you could build
until the product was unrecognizably better. 

And as the trains will continue to come and go
I hold your cobblestone streets, your towers and your harbors
as testimonials to the necessary pain
of a life fully lived and love fully felt. 

-PR