Darrell Petska

Welcome to Our Hill

Sandals are fine:
it’s a mild, 10-minute climb.
From the top, looking west,
you’ll see fields of corn,
wheat, and alfalfa.
Its grassy eastern slope
descends to a housing development.
The patch of gravel at the south base
never fills with cars—
and from the north can waft the scent
of a hog farm the field of wind turbines
beyond doesn’t actually send our way.

Scattered oaks, prairie grass,
turkeys, rabbits, squirrels—unpretentious,
yet we locals troop regularly to the top
with its wooden platform and bench
where we cuddle our loves, mull our debts,
or eat sandwiches.

Coming here, you’re likely content
with the ordinary, foregoing Everest
style thrills and chills for the grounded
silence of Native Americans interred
in the bird mound near the hill’s summit.

A hill like ours can’t be boastful:
time and the elements keep paring it
down. Still, what good fortune
to have a hill because, sometimes,
a body feels the need to climb one.

Darrell Petska is a retired university engineering editor and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. His work appears in Verse-Virtual, 3rd Wednesday Magazine, San Antonio Review, Amethyst Review, and widely elsewhere (conservancies.wordpress.com). Father of five and grandfather of seven, he lives near Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife of more than 50 years.