I am taking a blog break for Lent, but I thought I’d share some of my old posts from years gone by. I’ve been blogging at Semicolon since October, 2003, more than eleven years. This post is copied and edited from May 3, 2005:
NO JOKE/HAPPY POETRY MONTH!
© 2014 Luke Detwiler, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio
I am from the edge of the Edwards Plateau, the two bedroom house on the unpaved block of Florence Street, dusty road dividing the widow ladies from the Methodist Church across the street on one corner and the Church of God on the other.
I am from pecans and apricots, mesquite and chinaberry, the tree I sat in to read my ten allowed library books every week and to watch the neighbor lady brush out her long grey Pentecostal hair that had never been cut.
I am from cranking homemade ice cream with ice and rock salt packed into the freezer and going to church every time the doors were open.
From Mary Eugenia and Joe Author, Lula Mae and Monger Stacy, Bonnie Leota and Kenneth Dale.
I come from teachers and preachers and hard workers, the kind of people who could fix your car or sell you a ticket to the drive-in picture show or teach your children to read and write.
From “don’t sing at the table” and “we only expect you to do your best”.
I’m from cars with names like the Maroon Marauder and Old Bessie, from carports and driveways instead of garages, from swamp coolers instead of central air, from shade trees and pavement so hot it could burn your bare feet.
I am from Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong, Girls’ Auxiliary and Training Union, The Old Rugged Cross and It only takes a spark, from old ladies playing the autoharp in Sunbeams and young bearded men playing the guitar around the campfire. From Kumbaya.
From the Heart of Texas, the Heartland, the center of the universe, the kind of town everybody wants to be from.
I come from Wales and Arkansas, Comanche, Sweetwater, Claude, and Brownwood, fried chicken, fried potatoes, steak fingers and fried okra.
I’m from y’all and pray for rain and fixin’togo.
From the grandmother who sewed and the Mema who taught music, the grandpa who could sell ice to an Eskimo, and the grandfather who worked on cars and died before I was born.
I am from a house full of memories and craft projects, some completed and hung on the walls, some never finished, waiting for younger hands and newer minds. I’m from dreams and places where doors were not locked and neighbors never let you pay them back when you borrowed an egg or a cup of milk.
This poem began with a poem by George Ella Lyon called Where I’m From. You can read more at the poet’s site about how the poem became a writing prompt and a phenomenon.
Pratie’s Place has a list of links to bloggers who have written poems participating in this meme.
If you write your own I-am-from poem, let me know in the comments, and I’ll link to it.
