I have always watched you. This country girl on a hill watching you as you meet the cars with their honking horns. On a hill watching the sun set behind you as it shimmers the strength of your skyscrapers. Your city line has always enticed me. Your colors beckoning me to escape the solitude of normalcy for an adventure. But, even your lights that charm and glisten with the stars has never been enough to break the bond of the country.

As I sit in the meadow listening to the sounds of the whistling grass I watch a single hawk encircle the blue sky. The sun beats onto my skin which has been tanned to match the color of the earth. The simplicity here is not a delusion. It is the roots that have entangled itself into the ground, my foundation as broken as it has become, that makes me who I am.

I head to you once more as I do every morning. Your metropolitan bustles with the sounds of chatter, laughter, a sense of excitement fills the air as people shuffle to their hopes and dreams. I see you stand tall, not giving an inch to the wind that tries to bend you. The gust whispers through your superstructures finding the complacent parts of your construction but cannot because you are founded by the morals of the unbending plaster of your community you have built. I feel strong within your arms and yet things feel unpredictably unsafe.

The commute away from you is a welcome feeling. My senses are on overdrive at the end of the day. I step on the gas because as I leave you I leave the heaviness, the loss, the reason to jeaopardize who and what I am for the unreal reality. As I head into the country I can feel a sense of self. I fade back into me, the country girl in love with the city but smart enough to stay away.

I must let you go. I sit across the water looking at your lights and how they dance to the rythym of the moon. I listen to the music that floats from the bars lining the shore, the serenade of love, sadness, want and misfortune. The ghost of your shadow lingers on the water almost close enough to touch. I know a single touch of the shadow will pull me back to you. The country holds me steady and I shouldn’t need to feel the pull of anything else as I live in my grassroots of home.

My heart longs for the city. It longs to feel the strength of the buildings and roads that hug them. My heart longs for the stormy sky and the lightening that cracks past the windows of the building. There is no undertow in the city, just the calming presence of the city center and the musical ballads of the entertainers. Just the people running for the dryness of an eaves while splashing the afternoon’s pour. The music of the community invading the feel of lonliness. My heart longs for the city that has taken more than I could ever give.

My heart beats for the country. It beats me to the very thing that brings me back home. The sweet caress of the wind. The light kiss of the sun. The music of the grass and leaves jostling for my attention. The forgivenss of the world around you is what brings me back to the country. The soft grass on my back as I watch the country’s lights dance around the moon. The very stars that I have learned to wish upon. The country, my country, has taught me to toughen up and now yields the harvest that keeps my heart full even as I want more.