You’re not the famous one where soldiers are
interred, and honored on a holiday,
but you’re my home and in my eyes a star,
the place I raised my daughter and she’d play…

in charming playgrounds by the biking trail,
surrounded by a wealth of greenery,
where I have gone through joy and through travail
amidst your gorgeousness of scenery.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
a nest, a gem, of happiness pursuit.

I’ve strolled through nearly every street of yours
and crystallized your beauty in a frame,
like tourists do with cameras on tours
of cities of world stature and great fame.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
with photographs, instead of guns, to shoot.

I’ve loved your gardens and your blooms in pots,
although to me most planters are unknown,
their varied stories with their twists of plots,
their lives like mine or different from my own.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
where flower fashions top the finest suit.

While often with my struggles I have wrestled,
I’ve loved to stroll your lovely tree-lined roads,
and seeing homes in little forests nestled
has lightened with some loveliness life’s loads.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
of harmony with nature we pollute.

The library that’s in your center has
for years been like a second home to me,
so full of treasures I could rarely pass
without a visit or a peek to see.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
where they can borrow treasures, free of loot.

As nowhere in the world is perfect, you
aren’t perfect—seeming priced for king or queen:
compared to pay for most jobs people do,
your rent and cost of living are obscene.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
without a fear of ending destitute.

With everything that’s needed close at hand,
you’re haven of convenience, peace, and ease,
here where supply most often meets demand,
unlike some places, near or overseas.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
where no one falls and lacks a parachute.

Although you’re full of nature, you aren’t far
from Boston, dubbed hub of the universe,
by bus and train, or bicycle, or car,
without a zillion miles to traverse.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
without exhaust-filled hours to commute.

Although your school’s excel, they sorely lack
diversity my daughter much preferred,
with few from other countries, brown or black,
a melting pot of different colors stirred.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
where people of all colors bear much fruit.

Your houses are of multicolored hues,
from lavenders and yellows, greens, and pink,
greys, and reds, and varied shades of blues,
with sky, and blooms, and foliage in sync.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
where colors range from loud to soft to mute.

I’ve stared at architecture mixed with verdure
while strolling by your houses’ flights of stairs
and felt its ordered stillness reassure
in times of frequent escalating scares.

May all have such a dear hometowns to take root,
that soothe through troubles, chronic and acute.

Of nearly fifty thousand residents,
I’m well acquainted only with a few,
a minuscule point zero…..one percent
and wish that there were more of them I knew.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
of people value no one can compute.

Because you’re beautiful beyond dispute,
May all have such dear hometowns to take root….

An online album of photographs of Arlington is available here.
A booklet with the “Dear Arlington” text and more photos is available here
Mario A. Pita
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