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ou'd be surprised how often people send me poems. About their families or the weather. About the seasons. About politics and current events.

Punky Burwinkle sent me one just last week. It started like this:

I don't know why they act surprised

Since it happens every single year

The council learns they're out of cash

Before their fiscal end is here...

I love it. We've got so many schemes running in politics these days that a rhyme scheme is easier to swallow.

But I got another poem in my inbox last week, too. It was from Susie Abbott, Executive Director of the Youth Leadership Forum of Birmingham, which introduces students to the issues and assets across the metro area.

The poem was written during that program by a high school sophomore named Lydia Oliver. It began like this:

It's nice to have you in Birmingham.

Welcome to this city,

which grew like vines

between red brick and cobblestone.

Where sparks trickle over iron ore

like fireworks over Regions Field.

It went on the talk of the flames and the furnaces, of "rising like a phoenix from the ashes."

It was about hope, and promise, and rebirth. Which is sort of fitting on a day like today.

In the mind of this young lady, Birmingham is this:

Lydia Oliver

It's the child shouting on the shoulders of his father

as the Barons run for home.

It's bicycle wheels whirling over Railroad Park in April,

and glasses clinking down in Southside.

It's Vulcan's guidance directed nowhere

but UP, UP, UP—

just like us.

I wanted to talk to her to see if she knew the story of Birmingham's past, and she did.

I wanted to talk to her to see if she knew the obstacles Birmingham has faced. And she did.

I wanted to talk to her to see if she really knew Birmingham. And she did.

This is a kid who splits time with her mom in Blount County and her dad in the city. She attends the Alabama School of Fine Arts downtown and heard all the usual reaction when she was accepted.

She was warned of downtown dangers, and cautioned: "Don't get mugged."

"That is not what my experience has been," she said. "It has been great. Birmingham just keeps growing."

The symphony at Railroad Park (Mark Almond)

The hope and belief is contagious. It is hard not to smile hearing the way she talks of going to shows and galleries with her dad, to Five Points for brunch with her friends, to Sloss Furnace and to Railroad Park, to hear the sense of community she gets from ... her community.

It is the eternal gift of youth, of course. We can always find hope in bright young people with bright dreams and visions of a better day. We can take comfort in the fact that they can see wonders the old goats among us too seldom acknowledge. We can smile because they are not beholden to the disappointments that shaped their elders.

Young people like Lydia Oliver don't have any reason to believe Birmingham can't be all they believe it can.

And that is our hope. If only we could all believe with such conviction. With such power and beauty.

"I'm hopeful and excited," she says, in a way that sounds both hopeful and excited. "I think Birmingham is going to be a place of opportunity. I'd like to be part of it."

If you haven't appreciated Birmingham since you were young, that's Birmingham.

If you haven't dared to hope for better, that's Birmingham. If you haven't been downtown in a long time, take solace in the fact that, at least to some, that is Birmingham.

Or as Lydia put it in verse:

It's hands folding over hands

across streets mapped out in grids like treasure chests—

all of them leading home.

Happy Easter.

John Archibald is a columnist for Alabama Media Group. Email him at jarchibald@al.com

---------------

We're Glad to Have You in Birmingham

By Lydia Oliver

It's nice to have you in Birmingham.

Welcome to this city,

which grew like vines

between red brick and cobblestone.

Where sparks trickle over iron ore

like fireworks over Regions Field.

This city, born from a magic

found deep in the furnaces,

and rising like a phoenix from the ashes.

Y'all, I know this place has been a long time coming—

we have dust between our fingers,

and sometimes it's hard to see the stars at night.

The thing is,

you can't beat the blue skies

carrying the howl of trains

expanding in the air like a war cry—

a call from the ancestors

who made it all worth it.

It's not just the food or the brews,

or even the music.

It's the child shouting on the shoulders of his father

as the Barons run for home.

It's bicycle wheels whirling over Railroad Park in April,

and glasses clinking down in Southside.

It's Vulcan's guidance directed nowhere

but UP, UP, UP—

just like us.

It's hands folding over hands

across streets mapped out in grids like treasure chests—

all of them leading home.

Lydia Oliver

Alabama School of Fine Arts