Hastings-on-Hudson

When clouds of spring scud by on windy tide
Like old Dutch sloops beneath the Palisades;
When robin sings from memory, and beside
The house lost fragrance stirs in leafy shades;
Then on a ramble memory goes
To Ravensdale and Uniontown,
To high Mt. Hope, steep Pinecrest,
To Edgars Lane, Villard Estates,
Three Island Pond and Indian Rock;
The VFW, Warburton Bridge,
Reynolds Field and the Aqueduct,
To old Southside and Tower Ridge,
To Billie Burke’s and Draper Park.

Say the word and you are there; each scene
Clear in recall, more clear by nature’s art
When Spring, the mountain-leaper, hangs her green
In all the winding bygones of my heart,
And lilac breathes to mind, how faint so ever,
A little village by the Hudson River.

-by Henry J. Scully

[Thanks to my friend Carolyn who sent me this sweet,

nostalgic poem written by her 84-year-old brother-in-law.]