Fairlington

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more.

Cold Morning

In the biting cold of a February morning

The dogs seem to understand better than most

That the streets must still be walked

They must be pulled from their beds still groggy

They must feel the tread of soggy feet

And take their place in the coming revelation

Fairlington Prayer

Holy Mary, mother of God,

Pray for us in Fairlington

Pray for us when dog walkers neglect their clean up duty

Pray for us when we silently curse the Farmers Market prices

Pray for us when our love of accessible storage

Outweighs our love of simplicity

Pray for us when our hearts are hard

Toward the child playing in the clearly marked lap lane

Pray for us when the late arriving 7Y keeps us standing silently

Amongst neighbors we’ve no interest in meeting

Pray for us when the light at Wakefield takes too long

And we can see the Starbucks we can’t get to

Pray for us now and in the hour of our zoom meetings

Pray for us in Fairlington

A Note from the Fairlington Historical Society

It may interest the community to know that the Fairlington Historical Society has conclusively determined that the trees circling the roundabout at Stafford and South 36th Street are precisely positioned so as to incarnate the greater and lesser wood gods when the conjunction of Jupiter and Mars falls on midsummer.

Fairlington Marriage Oath

Come away with me,

Live by my side,

Let me open your world

To possibilities

Of which you’ve never dreamed

Come away with me my love,

I will show you the most glorious

Of freeway sound barriers

The pinnacle of modern noise mitigation

It shall all be yours

Untitled

I have walked

On a dark morning

From a wild and windy glimpse

Of the world on 28th St.

I have walked

As the rain came down and collected at my feet

As I passed through muddy gaps

Between fence and hedge and balcony

I have walked

Across the Abingdon St. bridge

As the whole world rushes by

The gravity of elsewhere embodied

I have walked to Utah Park

Silent in the growing light

Before dogs and softball players wake up

Before the clatter of doors and car doors begins

And I have returned home,

To the red brick, to the gabled windows

To the decorative black shutters

Which keep out no wind

To my place, which is exactly like your place,

To my front steps, which are your front steps

To my patio and kitchen, which belong also to you,

And to the neighbors, and to yet unmet neighbors

Tennis Only

The sign reads

No dogs, skates, skateboards, bikes

Tennis Only

Presumably

No BBQs, birthday parties, late night cocktails

Tennis Only

No baby showers, bat mitzvahs, car repair, memorial services, lemonade stands, yoga classes, sewing groups, farmers markets, dodgeball, sitting, thinking, recovering, regrouping, theorizing, chit chatting, guitar strumming, idle wondering, gold prospecting, unicorn feeding, rocket launching, bonsai trimming, staring contests, zeppelin assembly, or kazoo playing

Tennis Only

Beloved

O Fairlington, you are beloved.

Stretch out your mostly middle class limbs

Out, out, across endless King St

With its McDonald’s shootings,

With sagging sweatpants guy

Who wants your cash but not a hamburger

Stretch your dog walking legs into

Park Shirlington, and on into Shirlington itself

Where everyone agrees we need more Park Shirlingtons

Just not here, not this close to the real Shirlington

The Mews

The paths of my neighborhood

Wind always to another chance meeting,

Sidewalks and children's trails

Going their own ways

Leaving the intrepid wanderer

Ever at a crossroads

Of adult wisdom and child-like faith

A Fairlington Creation Story

The Maker was a bird,

A giant sparrow, in the age

When all was much larger

When the world was covered

With crashing waves and soft light

The maker called to herself the light and the waves

And she wove them into a nest

She wove spreading trees

She wove meandering paths between them

She wove into all things her own purposes

Her nest grew and became itself creator

It formed brick townhouses, black metal balconies,

Pools and playgrounds, and rows of handrails

It gave life to children on scooters, to landscape committees,

To dog walkers, and to the faint sound of traffic on King Street

The Maker welcomed all these

She welcomed the comings and goings

The sounds of last hellos and first goodbyes

She joined them together in the world’s enduring melody

And there was evening, and there was morning, on that first day

Such Kingdoms

O Fairlington,

Weep not for what might have been

For the trees have grown

Their roots have broken the stony soil

And the hubris of newly poured concrete

The rush of cars on Quaker Lane

Has not overcome the secret paths

Leading to the emptiness inside billowing bushes

Known only to children and those

Who seek such kingdoms

The Stick Fort Prophecy

Written before the bulldozing of the stick fort in April 2022. RIP stick fort.

Harken to my words

You people of Fairlington

You of the locked gates

You of the private patios too small

To welcome a family not your own

You of the front porches

With no rocking chairs in sight

You have been weighed in the balance

And found wanting.

But one thing I credit to your account;

I have seen the stick fort, and it is good

For the sake of the stick fort

For the small hearts within

And the open hands without

For these shall my wrath be turned away

Oh Seriously, Again?

Geez, what is this?

You bought that?

Where on earth will we put it?

We can’t move the bookcase

It doesn’t fit anywhere else.

The attic?

The attic is full of trikes

And Christmas debris

And winter clothes

And that swirling maelstrom

Of an entrance to that weird dimension,

The one with the sentient cloud formations.

Well yes, that might work

So let’s put that here,

And we’ll move the bookcase

Up to the attic

Push it through the portal

And make it the clouds’ problem

Ideas for the Old Firestation

They say the old fire station’s still up for sale

But who knows what zoning concerns will prevail

I can think of a million things we could put there,

A foundry, a park, a mad scientist’s lair!

A florist, a bookshop, most anything really,

A clown college, alchemist; nothing too silly,

An exotic meats butcher, let’s have boa jerky!

A bow tie shop, barber; or something more quirky.

A carnivorous plant store, a baobab nursery,

A medieval castle, a wildebeest surgery,

An entomologist's office, a cod oil emporium,

A bicycle factory and a warehouse to store ‘em in!

That’s all just to say there’s a lot we could do

Or, ya know, leave it empty, and let it mildew.

The Last Day of Summer

This is your hour, Fairlington,

When the pool umbrellas

Close on the final lap swimmer

When the little free libraries

Blossom with finished beach pulp

When the bright sun of summer

Is muted just enough

To let the sparkle of an autumn day

Remind us of what is to come

Fairlington Dream

It’s a brick and slate world out there

With shutters and rails

Repainted endless times

A land of old oaks and new magnolias

A listlessly wandering maze of tomorrow’s patio projects

And front porches

Too small for anything

But a potted plant

Just Between Us

From our house to yours

There is a curving street

A line of asphalt drawn

In a surveyor’s mind

Laid down between us

Designating the approved way

There is also a path

A worn treading of many feet

Of many days, a path slow enough

For the heart to change while walking

For love and anger to both cool

While the mind, always eager,

Flits in and out

And the feet walk in their own memory

The Arbor

Red bricks, black shutters

Stacked up on the others

Folded in and in on themselves

Long forgotten wedding bells