City of history, pride, and Paine,
Hopkinson, Patience, and Bonaparte’s fame.
Pointe Breeze, the home to that brief King of Spain, leveled by fire, but the townspeople came. Saving his riches and wealth from the flames, honest integrity earned his acclaim.
Farnsworth, Borden, and Lafayette’s names sit atop main streets, alleys, and lanes.
From Quaker beginnings, to Riverline trains,
the hallmark of each generation remains.
Places and spaces where new children play
amid aged reliefs from colonial days.
Cast iron fittings and cobblestones paved
the streets under horse hooves, trolleys, and sleighs.
Slate shingles and mortar, redbrick, plaster and lath,
runny glass windows, and cast iron baths,
an avant-garde blend of the old and the new,
combine to rekindle the home fire within you.
Shutters and dormers peer down from above,
vestiges silently witness the love of community, liberty, the best to be true,
to keep you in comfort like those before too.
The faded and crumbling give rise to new ways.
The foundations of old forge the paths for today.
The barber poll spins in an endless cocoon
while fireflies dance and sparkle in June,
a soft orange sun sets in the late afternoon.
The winds high on the bluffs blow a sweeping low tune
with a chorus of crickets under a deep autumn moon.
The city looks sleepy and resting supine,
like the Delaware’s current that’s hidden behind
that calm placid surface it rushes and flows,
the deep and the deadly strong undertows;
a hotbed of passion where creativity shows
a richness of culture, the community grows.
Clara Barton’s old schoolhouse was moved, but still stands,
her lifetime of work and her kind healing hands.
The John Bull’s mighty steam engine brought together a land
so far-flung and distant, the longest it ran.
After sailing Old Ironsides, his famous command,
Commodore Stewart left to the children his land.
The Bordentown School where Johnstone now stands,
high on the hill hosting youthful remands.
The landscape, it changes, it shifts and it bends,
as time marches forward, the tale never ends.
While we’re building our vision and resources spend,
the next generation arrives and extends.
Long after we’re gone,
with our families and friends,
a memory, a moment,
the city transcends.
Bordentown rises where that great river bends.
by D. Ryan Lafferty
Literary Crumbs: Poems & Short Stories to Savor by D. Ryan Lafferty 