The ski chalet,
\na wooden two-story
\nin Lafayette Acres,
\nFranconia, New Hampshire,
\nnorth of the Notch:
\nits owners
\nleft it vacant
\nduring the summer.
\nSomeone needed
\nto look after it,
\nand so it became
\nour family\u2019s (rented)
\nvacation home.<\/p>\n
Franconia!
\nI miss your sights:
\nEcho Lake,
\nthe Frost Place,
\nthe Hillwinds,
\nthe Grateful Bread,
\nPolly\u2019s Pancake Parlor
\n(that\u2019s neighboring Sugar Hill,
\nbut no great matter),
\nBishop\u2019s Ice Cream,
\nthe Village Store,
\nthe Dutch Treat.<\/p>\n
I had a yellow ten-speed,
\nhandlebars taped sloppily
\nwith feeble masking tape.
\nI\u2019d ride this bike
\nfrom Lafayette Acres,
\ndown Magowan Hill,
\npast the River Gale,
\nunder the overpass,
\nup Route 18
\nto the center of town,
\na dozen or so buildings
\ndotting either side
\nof the sleepy one-lane road.<\/p>\n
I miss the Old Man
\nwho crumbled to earth
\nsome years ago, \u201903 it was,
\nthe God-hewn rock-face
\non the side of Cannon Mountain.<\/p>\n
I even miss the names
\nof your old-time politicians:
\nGallen, Sununu, Gregg.<\/p>\n
I miss your thunderstorms
\nand fireflies. I miss
\nthe drive-in ten miles away
\non the road between
\nLittleton and Whitefield.<\/p>\n
I miss being young
\nand writing elate poems
\nto your thousand-foot mountains,
\nmere hills compared to what
\nother places boast.<\/p>\n
I miss being a fidgety passenger
\nin the back seat
\nof the \u201976 Monte Carlo,
\ngobbling up the ribbon
\nof Interstate 93.<\/p>\n
I miss the hum
\nof summer bugs.
\nI miss the golf courses
\nwhere Dad played golf
\nand I caddied
\nenduring bad language
\nwhen he\u2019d hit one
\ninto the rough.<\/p>\n
Franconia, with your dirt roads,
\nwith your rocky River Gale,
\nwith your staid white church\u2014
\nOur Lady of the Snows\u2014
\nwhich I maybe entered once,
\nyou magic\u2019d my childhood,
\nempearled my adolescence,
\nand mothered a hundred poems.
\nAnd so, this note of thanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The ski chalet, a wooden two-story in Lafayette Acres, Franconia, New Hampshire, north of the Notch: its owners left it vacant during the summer. Someone needed to look after it, and so it became our family\u2019s (rented) vacation home. Franconia! I miss your sights: Echo…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":933,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/933"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34096"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44079,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34096\/revisions\/44079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}