A Sense of Place - Jan 12 2022

 

A Sense of Place

Jan 12 2022

The new subdivision looked raw.

The saplings, newly planted, were slender,

whip-thin branches

almost bare.

The sod, rolled out haphazardly

had been badly neglected;

so there were gaps between the strips,

and the parched grass

was starting to yellow.

The houses themselves

were based on the same basic plan,

so despite a few valiant embellishments

possessed little character.

While the old neighbourhood

had plenty of shade

under tall spreading trees.

The houses were old, and various

but ageing gracefully,

set back from the street

behind generous lawns.

Even the sidewalk had settled,

cracked concrete, overgrown with weeds,

each oddly angled fragment

either subsiding with the soil

or tilted up

by tough thick roots

bulldozing-in beneath.

Still, people walked

stopped and talked

were friendly with their neighbours.

So when I was forced to move away

it was a shock.

Having lived there so long

I, too, had settled in;

comforted

by a sense of belonging

and place.

But also long enough to forget

that it also once was new

and raw

and mostly vacant,

and may have looked just as cold

and graceless.

Neighbourhoods, like nature, succeed;

one generation

handing off to the next

as they fall from fashion

or fall into disrepair.

But there is much to be said

for old and gracious things;

new is not better

and we are not lessened by age.