This is a poem I wrote for class, in the style of George Ella Lyonās poem āWhere Iām Fromā.
I am from needles, nitrogen, and phosphorus.
I am from the soil of strawberries and the grit of sand.
I am from banyan trees and poinsettias with leaves the red of a beating heart.
I am from stolen chocolate chips and southern baked beans,
from the Stones and Zeppelins that fall to the ground.
I am from the need to be heard in two different ways.
I am from the farms in the southern hills, where the sweat ran hot in the summers.
I am from the seas of the peninsula and the grains of the world.
I am from stationary roots and the constant whir of a plane engine,
and somehow the static and the vibrant met and moved together in the quietest of places.
I am from the divorce and the divorce before the Great Divorce.
I am from sips of coffee and gulps of whiskey.
I am from cornbread and rhubarb pie.
Iām from a fondness of sheep and
āYou were my ideaā
That followed finding the wool and a silk animal.
I am from a heart murmur and rheumatic fever.
I am from braces and perms, a smile that rarely seems true but eyes that twinkle with knowing.
I am from the two fingers my great grandfather lost to a combine, and the toil of feeding a nation.
Iām from Be kind! and Play with others!
Iām from solitude and the dust of oak that sat on the worn pages.
Iām from scraped knees as the sky sought to be touched.
Iām from a heart that stilled and the heart that slowed at the loss, hoping to give some of the beats back.
Thereās a basket in my closet full of stills from those lives,
each fonder than the last and full of breaths frozen in time.
Each face is tucked away in my memories for safe keeping-
their stories should not be forgotten.
With it is a blanket, worn and full of holes but somehow still overflowing with love.
But if you listen to the ticking and ask me now,
the most important thing is-
Iām from right here.
snowghoul
pixelskylines
tangentwithtanner
dailybridgerton
