A Tribute to Nashville

Down in them southern hills

Trickling down from Yankeeland

Like water through a seive

Down in them southern hills of Indiana

S’where I hope to live.

You see these streets hold a promise

of enchantment that fulfills

On fluttered wings of seagulls.

These forested hills and hollows

Caress you whilst you make yourself

At home on every trail and follow.

When the evening star makes her light

Appear to give a weary soul some rest.

Up-and-early risers catch the

Morning’s bluish haze

Awakens to have another day be blessed.

This the place the gypsy spirit feels the most home

It’s in this wooded paradise alone.

As easily as a leaf to find

Romantic vagabond moments stay forever in my mind.

— Judi Nulf, Delphi

Spirits of Home

It was Labor Day weekend, 2011, 90 degrees and heading for 100. Steamy and sticky, we were sent back to the 1920s, on the front porch of the house on Jefferson Street. Old friends gathered to fill the idle time. The spirit of the rustic souls who lived here before came alive in us. So we spun the stories and jokes and memories. Somehow, those moments set our hearts at ease, and we were at home and a part of this lovely place of childhood and past lives — an opening of a door to another time. A stranger walked by and heard us laughing and looked at us and smiled. She could see we were happy to be where we wanted to be. Where we should be. Where we have to be. And like the spirits from before, where we will always be.

— Robbie Bowden, Brown County

An Abbey Day

Stone walls encircle the Abbey groundsand hold us in, not by force

but by our own agreeable sure-will

I sit, barely moving, making notes

An elderly woman is reading;

her cane beside her chair

Silence

This is the treasured place for silence;

listening only to a touch of still-voiced breeze

Circling clouds contemplate their next move;

dispatched on a journey they can not predict

Tree leaves cup upward;

toward the clouds of Puritan-white

The mind of each tree settles on its purpose;

standing rigid, anticipating the summer shower

Whenever the clouds find their fluid voice:

Silence

— Normajean MacLeod, Brown County

Written on retreat at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemane

Brown County residents or former residents can submit original poems to be published in Poets’ Corner by emailing them to [email protected] or mailing to P.O. Box 277, Nashville, IN 47448.

Include your name and town of residence.