It was at the Covenant Shores Retirement Community where former Island resident Virginia Carter’s poem titled “Mercer Island,” from years past, was recently brought out of obscurity.

“I’m afraid I’m to blame for that,” said Dottie Morss, a Covenant Shores resident, who has kept a copy of the poem that the Reporter initially published in 1978. “I have always loved the poem — I just think it’s as sweet as it can be … I remember when I read it many years ago, I immediately fell in love with it.” After sharing it during a meal, Morss said many of the residents have been wanting a copy.

Carter, an author who once worked as an artist for Disney studios, illustrated the original poem as a “poem portrait.”

Mercer Island

By Virginia Carter

Paradise is not very big

Not everyone gets inside

It’s only six and a half miles long

And not even two miles wide.

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A montage of flowers, firs, berry bushes,

Chimneys, shake roofs, cedar siding,

Squirrels, ducks, raccoons, robbins

Folks jogging, cycling, sailing, riding.

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Skies frosted with whipped cream clouds

A militant breeze that permits no grime,

And though winter rains seem endless

It just rains one day at a time.

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At night, ringed by glittering horizons.

Spilling lights across the lake,

It’s like having an incredibly beautiful dream

Then finding out you’re awake.

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An all-expense-paid vacation,

Where it’s “Saturday night” every day

A wonderful place to live and work,

A fabulous place to play.

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Yet the Island is more than a place

It’s really a way of life

And though Paradise can have problems

Tranquility tempers the strife.

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Only minutes from big-town excitement,

Yet remote — charmingly rural,

Washington is surely the oyster

And Mercer Island the pearl.