To Annie

A Poem From Ed Pacht

Today, Rochester poet laureate Ed Pacht takes over Day By Day. Ed is a remarkable and prolific poet, writing a poem a day every day for years and years. He’s funny, decent and a good friend of my family and of Little Bean. A few days ago, inspired by a post here about people in your life who made a difference, Ed dug up an old poem and sent it with an explanation. Here’s a link to a story about Ed’s work in Rochester and about him: Poet Ed Pacht. With his permission, we present the poem, To Annie, for you all today. Enjoy! Thank you Ed!

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To Annie,

Introduction

In the late 'forties the Pacht family relocated to Grafton, New Hampshire, where my Dad ran a general store called "The Patches". We were in walking distance of the two room schoolhouse in East Grafton (a place of many marvelous memories). Close by the school was a little house with an attached barn, not a very fancy house, not the dwelling of (materially) rich people. There was a wood stove, a hand pump in the kitchen, and an outhouse at the back of the barn. But it was a magic place because of friends. My classmate Norma, her little brother Jay, their big sister Dodie, and (seen from this distance), most of all, their mother, Annie Merrill. Yes, there was a father at home, and there was an older brother as well, but it is these four that stick hard in my memory.

As I write this (March 10, 1999) we are still in touch with the Merrills, and I have just recently had letters from both Dodie and Annie. It seemed like time to write this.

To Annie

It was a small house

on a little hill

by a country road

in a small town

in days gone by.

It was a small house.

It was a warm house,

a house where the hot old stove

drove the deep chill

of the subzero winter

out of the bones

of the little boy

who came to visit

on his way to school.

It was a small house.

It was a warm house,

a house where friends were,

a house where welcome was free

to the little boy

who came to visit

on his way to school.

It was a small house.

It was a warm house,

where the little boy found friends:

Norma, his age, good friend, but

Not a girlfriend (or at least not quite);

and Jay, his sister's beau (almost);

and Dode, big sister,

living in another world

where little boys did not go,

but reaching, always,

to be a friend;

and Annie, there's the one,

the mother of the friends, but more:

a grown-up friend,

an equal friend,

a friend to the little boy,

a friend to whom he could speak

about all the many things

that caught his fancy, and

set him thinking, and

made his mind inquire.

It was a small house

on a little hill

by a country road

in a small town

in days gone by,

and there, in that house,

I was the little boy,

who found respect

from a grown up friend

whose open enjoyment

of that strange little boy

still has its effect

today.

It was a small house

on a little hill

by a country road

in a small town

in days gone by,

but the small house

is a big part

of what makes me, me.

Annie died a few years ago in her 90s and always remembered the six-year-old me, but I don’t think she ever really knew how great an influence she had (and still has) on my life.

~Ed Pacht (Feb. 2025)

Poet Ed Pacht