Welcome to Day 4 of the July Open Write. If you have written with us before, welcome back. If you are joining us for the first time, you are in the kind, capable hands of today’s host, so just read the prompt below and then, when you are ready, write in the comment section below. We do ask that if you write, in the spirit of reciprocity, you respond to three or more writers. To learn more about the Open Write, click here.
Our Host
Shelby is from Alpena, Michigan, and currently lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She connected with Ethical ELA through coursework with Dr. Stefani Boutelier. Shelby will be starting her first year as a teacher of record in August, teaching eighth grade ELA at Vanguard Charter Academy. She received a B.A. in Cognitive Science with a minor in English from Dartmouth College in 2022 and is pursuing an M.Ed. through Aquinas College.
Inspiration
I used to wish I had a map that showed me how much time I’ve spent in all the places in my life–bedroom, schools, libraries, friends’ rooms, etc. Places are the backdrops, hosts, and sneaky facilitators to our lives and memories. Where would we be without them!?
I’ve always thought about place a lot, through lenses of politics, nostalgia, vacation planning, etc., but Noah Kahan’s album Stick Season has had me thinking extra lately about the places I’ve called home, the pieces of them I’ve taken with me, and the pieces of myself I’ve left in them.
Process
- Think back to the places you’ve called home, and choose one to write about.
- Ask yourself what makes this place home for you. This could be the people, how the place affected you, your memories, habits, or anything else that makes it important.
- Include a few specifics or sensory details so that we can see this place through your perspective. What’s important to you that other people may not notice?
- Length and form is up to you.
Shelby’s Poem
Your Turn
Now, scroll to the comment section below to write your own poem. (This is a public space, so you may choose to use only your first name or initials depending on your privacy preferences.) Not ready? That’s okay. Read the poems already posted for more inspiration. Ponder your own throughout the day. Return later. And, if the prompt does not work for you, that is fine. All writing is welcome. Just write something. Also, please be sure to respond to at least three writers. Oh, and a note about drafting: Since we are writing in short bursts, we all understand (and even welcome) the typos and partial poems that remind us we are human and that writing is always becoming. If you’d like to invite other teachers to write with us, tell them to subscribe. For suggestions on how to comment with care. See this graphic.
Home is the house I was brought to after being born.
The place I spent 20 of my years.
Building make-believe fantasies
Within the woods and in the garden.
Always a place that I can go back to,
for Holiday parties and family get-togethers
Memories paint the walls,
and love decorates the inside.
Even after all these years the garage code is still the same
born in a stream my home is fluid,
never the same despite the familiarity,
mountains melt into lakes that spring up forests,
air smells of cedar, brine, and bogs
memories dance on the waves of the present,
i float against currents of belonging and solitude,
for water moves and changes,
but if i follow the gutters, the creeks, the rivers,
ill find myself a home
The Big House
100,000 fans all cheering loud
From across the field they look as small as a mouse.
So much better than watching on the couch
As the football hits the ground, the Wolverines pounce
While Ann Arbor is my home, Michigan Stadium is my house
This was fun to read. I could feel the excitement of a game in the Big House through your poem and could almost hear the 100k fans after walking the streets lined with tailgaters and parties! GO BLUE! A small interesting fact about me…my husband’s name is Blu. 🙂 Really!
Shelby, what a great poem about this important place called home. I love the specific details you added about the haircuts and pizza and mint tea and more. It really helps us be there with you.
I took a phrase from your poem to start mine today:
To be home is to be in this place
With you as we finish the race
At peace, in love, holding hope
In holy turns of life’s kaleidoscope
Thank you, Denise! What a short, sweet poem, that still combines place and people. The third line has to be my favorite, even if the last one packs a bigger punch.
Shelby, maybe it’s because you are from Michigan, maybe it’s because I discovered my independence as a grad student there, but I haven’t thought about the incident that inspired this poem in years. (I graduated in 1990 and moved to California a month later.)
Thank you for this prompt.
—–
The last place I lived in Ann Arbor wasn’t really a home,
just a few rooms carved out of an old house, someone’s
home before owners carved the houses on their street to meet
the needs of graduate students all packed together like passengers
in a crowded bus station. Mine was three rooms: a studio with
a daybed, half-bath, tiny kitchen. I studied at a card table pushed
next to a window – not unlike the desk where I sit now gazing
out at neighbors – Mostly, I remember the cold of a furnace that ran
out of steam. My first home alone – no roommates. I burrowed in like a
rabbit in winter. Then, the knock at the door. Interrupted I met a young
man much like me but dressed in hospital gown and slippers against February
snow. He had returned to the last place he had lived before his breakdown.
Reader, I got him help – for him and for me – he returned to his hospital
and I returned sleepless to the last place I lived in Ann Arbor.
Who was I to think that we are ever on our own?
Thank you, Jeff! I love that you used the word carved, and the image of the card table pushed against the window. And I see why this incident stuck with you—it will stick with me to think about this man’s attachment to place being so strong that it led him back “home” amidst other confusion.
Jeff, I am so glad I came back this morning to read this beautiful poem. I love, love that you spoke to the reader directly. I feel honored, what a wonderful way to say you both got help. This poem will stick with me.
For over fifty years, my home has been the same. Home for me is not a house,
but rather the safety, contentment, and love I find in my husband’s arms.
Rita, so glad you posted this sweetness. I was inspired by yours to write mine today. I am very thankful for the home my husband and I make for each other. Your “home for me is not a house” is lovely.
Thanks, Denise. Sorry the format is weird. Good to “see” you on this site. Rita
That’s what we all want from going home at the end of a long day 😊
I can relate to this as I agree home does not have to be a definitive place, but it is rather something unique and special to everyone!
Thank you Shelby! I can relate to your ‘place and home’. I usually don’t have a flashlight but do have the headphones. Good luck, I know you will inspire many!
HardyWoods Home
From broken dwellings
to
homeless
to
The Land of Dragonflies
but here
Hard wood
Soft grass
like feathers with little star flowers
ahh the family woodlot
this is where I want to be
it’s dark in here
like a bat cave
safe
I can see out but who can see in
watch the birds for sign in the sky
it took a trip halfway around the world
willing to loose it all just to sit on the grass
content with a simple life
teaching is my give back
thanks
never will I have to go anywhere again
my Hardy Woods Home
Emily, I love your use of sensory images in this poem. Especially, tactile images “Hard wood / Soft grass.” I connect that with the “broken dwellings” contrasted with a “simple life.” There’s a richness in this poem that you can feel in your body. Thanks for sharing.
Emily, such an interesting poem. I want to know more about this Hardy Woods Home! I love this description:
Thank you Emily! I like the capitalization of Hardy Woods Home and Land of Dragonflies. Combined with the imagery of nature, it makes it seem to me like this place is on the edge of real and imagined.
Does a place really
Exist if it does not
Exist in our mind? What better proof that it does
Exist than our return to it in our
Dreams? Upon waking from our
Dreams, we walk out the door but do not leave our
Dreams behind. Grandma’s house is so
Real with its indoor/outdoor carpet indoors.
Real too is the white/black hexagonal tile of mom’s apartment.
Real, so real, is the fusty old upright piano in the parsonage.
Dreams are ever unforgiving, unforgetting.
Dreams recapture us in places long gone.
Dreams do not close the door behind us.
This is simply beautiful. I will keep the last line tucked in
my heart…so true.
This is really getting to me, as I just had a dream last night that took place in a house I moved out of in 2018. The question at the beginning opens up your poem for such a beautiful answer.
I went with another Fibonacci poem today.
Home
is
where I
can take off
my bra as soon as
I walk through the door- sweet relief!
I just want to touch and agree…yes Mo, yes!!! “Sweet relief!”
AMEN!!!! This sweet relief is unparalleled!
And shoot it across the room onto my husband head. Agreed.
Oh, the imagery! 🤣
Mo, “sweet relief” indeed! Thank you for your vulnerability.
You know me so well, Mo!!!!!
Wow! What woman can’t relate to this. You nailed it.
Mo – Some very serious truth here! LOL! Susie
All you needed to say!
I’d like to come back to this one, but where I live now is the first place I thought of. 🙂
A
quick
count on
my fingers and
I realize I’ve lived in
fourteen apartments or houses
since I was born decades ago. I know
students who lived in only one house their
entire lives, but by their age
I’d lived in eight abodes in two
different states. The house I
live in now is the one that is
the most “home” that I’ve had
in my life–a house I own, all
by myself, just mine. After all
the moving and adjusting, all
the transitions–in both place
and life, it all comes down to
feeling I belong in the home I
created for my sons and me.
Cara,
I love how you gradually built to contentment in your home with your sons. The start felt unsettled as share how you moved a lot, and then you give us a warm feeling as you found home.
The shape . . . I love it! I am assuming it’s the side view of a house??
Yes! It’s a little askew, but that’s what I was going for! 🙂
Wow, I love the conclusion you come to here, “it all comes down to feeling I belong in the home I created for my sons and me.” And to top it off, you formed a house with a roof. How cool is that?
Awesome shape, Cara! I like how the end all comes together like home was leading up to this point with you and your sons. This poem is very *you* and I like being able to identify your “voice”
I love the pride you take in owning and building your own home! And the shape of the house! Thank you for sharing
Losing things is so stressful, but it is harder when you are separated by the eastern coastline.
https://heatmorr.blogspot.com/2023/07/keys-are-needed-to-unlock-too-many.html
Oops, this was my slice of life post, but I will post my poem here. I veered from the typical place and thought about the places or things keys unlock. My parents lost their keys and were not able to finish their trip home. Here is my nonet.
Keys
unlock
doors, boxes,
and other things
of value we aim
to keep safe from others,
but what is to be done when
we can’t unlock the mind to find
the skeleton needed to go home?
Heather, what a clever way to utilize the nonet poetry form. It almost looks like steps!
I appreciate the dichotomous way you use keys to lock and keys to open physical and emotional doors. Very poetic in the condensed form that expands upon reading.
Love the play on skeleton.
Heather, I appreciate your reminder that having keys to the mind is crucial too. Thank you!
Thank you so much for this prompt, Shelby! It always brings me back to my childhood because just, like your in your poem, “I know I really know the place when I know the back way” and can get there with my closed eyes at night. I especially like the final stanza as it also reminds me of my memories.
I have written several poems about the places I call home, and today I want to share with you the one where home for me equals my family–the one in which I grew up. It describes a usual evening at my home, where I was the youngest child. The only thing that is not true here are the names of my siblings. It’s not so easy to rhyme in English the Crimea-Tatar names.
Evening at Home
The tick and talk of time
To the childhood of mine…
Evening, home, kitchen table—
No phone, Facebook, Cable.
Conversations face-to-face
Happen often at this place.
Dad brings home bread and butter,
Mom prepares simple supper.
Children get around the light,
Ready eat and have delight.
Clock is ticking; it is tocking,
Everyone’s at table talking.
Kate has ball game coming Sunday,
Ann needs ride and treats for Monday.
Boys are called to office twice—
Dad decides it’s time to fuss.
Mom feels sorry for her sons
Giving them another chance.
Gayle has theater recital.
Amy thinks of story title,
Fanny-Mae describes the dress
She would wear to impress.
Baby-girl stands on a chair—
Restless—breathes a bit of air,
And recites a funny rhyme
Learned in school at downtime.
Clock is ticking; it is tocking,
Everyone’s at table talking.
Day is gone, and night is here.
We are happy—it is clear.
Leilya Pitre
April 27, 2022
This is such a sweet memory of home! I can tell you’re the youngest child, taking it all in and standing on a chair to get your piece in 🙂
I love this so much, Leilya! It paints a great picture of home.
Leilya, such a sweet poem of these priceless times together as a family. Nice rhythm and rhyme, as well as a meaningful story. I like the occasional repetition of lines too. The happiness is clear.
Summers at Bass Lake
Two weeks spent with grandparents and cousins
Dinners cooked over open fires
Late night ghost stories told in bed
Corn and blueberry picking
Night drives around the lake
Grandparents reading
Swimming daily
Family games —
Feels like
HOME
©️Jennifer Kowaczek July 2023
Shelby, thank you for today’s prompt. I always enjoy revisiting my childhood.
My grandparents owned a summer home in Indiana; it was actually the garage of my great grandparents home — my grandfather bought the garage from his in-laws when my dad was young and transformed it into a cozy cottage. Sadly, my grandmother sold it many years ago when none of her children were interested in taking it on from her.
My memories of our summers there are deep and full. I may try writing about more in another form.
Jennifer, thank you for sharing your warm memories of grandparents’ home! I can imagine you sitting around the fire, telling stories while waiting for the dinner. Corn and blueberry picking sounds like great adventures when we are children. All of the things you describe does feel like home.
Simply divine – the poem and the activities. A beautiful poem for the family.
Jennifer, your use of sensory images in this form helps us to experience the place as we read the words and get a sense of condensation with the downward slope until all is concentrated into one word – HOME. What an effective choice to show and tell in one concise poem!
You included so many great details in such a concise poem! Thank you for sharing!
Jennifer, this sounds wonderful: “Night drives,” “[g]randparents reading,” “[f]amily games”! Thanks for sharing these recollections with us!
I enjoyed this peek into your childhood home. The vivid details paint quite a clear picture.
Shelby, your model poem was so fun to read that I read it several times. I love the way you used stanzas to separate chapters of your life, but really they all fit together into your home-inspired poem. Thanks for the invitation!
The Green House
Our home is a poem
from the morning light
seeping in from the shades
to the bitter evening breeze
brushing the bronze chimes.
Our home is a poem:
the chipped “soft chamois” paint
the dog hair, everywhere
the dent in the hardwood floor.
Our home is a poem because
it holds us and our humanness.
Where everything has a story
because we have made it
exactly so.
Rachelle,
I stopped at the title and thought about the green house. I wondered about greenhouse or green as in new or green as in the color. I enjoyed predicting and then refining my understanding as I read on. And then thinking about the paint and dog hair as meter and lines and then the dent in the hardwood as a comma. I was mapping these places to poetic structures. So cool, and then that last couple lines. You offer such closure here to the home and the poem in “because we have made it/exactly so.” And I feel you have invited your reader to be part of the “we.” And for that I thank you.
Sarah
I love the parallel structure with “our home is a poem,” Rachelle! Your home is as beautiful, inspiring, and inviting as a poem indeed. Love the imagery of “the morning light / seeping in from the shades” and “the bitter evening breeze / brushing the bronze chimes.”
The final lines really bring it all together. Thank you for writing and sharing today!
Wow, I have to say that your words made me tear up. Your home certainly is a poem full of so much heart.
Your sentence “Bitter evening breeze brushing the bronze chimes” is perfection!! I love the last sentence, too. I think you hit exactly what makes a house into a home—you make it so 🙂
Rachelle,
This is beautiful! The beauty and love you find in the ordinary wear and accumulation of life is perfect. Well done!!
Hi Shelby,
Niiiiiice! Your poem is one I imagine reading in a book of poems about PLACE. Outstanding images and it evokes such a warm cozy feeling. These lines resonated with me as they remind me of my past:
I love it!! Thank you. I was inspired by you to write a Golden Shovel about my happy place (in the swimming pool many years ago). I took a line from a poem by Arthur Sze called Swimming Laps. My line is: reaching the wall, I pause, climb out of the pool, start a new day-.
Floating Memories
Arms poised at 180° like a compass reaching
east to west across the
warm water. Nowhere near the wall,
floating weightless and careless, I
give life the time to pause
soft gaze as planes and birds climb
beyond clouds in the sky, heading out
to anywhere with no signs of
looking back or returning to the
earth’s chaos. But here in mom’s pool,
I am the buoy where home and freedom start
I am one ripple in a
summer stream of peace, bathed in new
gratitude for this memory of a faraway day—
ⓒStacey L. Joy, July 18, 2023
Stacey, you really captivated me with the compass simile in that first line. I could just picture the scene. It reminded me of similar times I have felt weightless on the surface of the pool water. I am particularly drawn to this line “I am the buoy where home and freedom start”. I will be chewing on that tonight. Thank you for sharing this treat with us.
Stacey, thank you for sharing this memory with us today. I am desperate to feel this as we swear in this excessive summer heat! I love the use of Golden Shovel for your poem, too. Beautiful!
Stacey,
I love this floating and enjoyed the light movement from line to line, your words holding me up, carrying my eyes across and down. I found myself reading the phrase “mom’s pool” as the literal place and figurative space in this poem. How your poems and you cannot be extracted from this, “the buoy where home and freedom start” and also the “new.”
Sarah
Stacey, your happy place is so inviting here. I can see you “floating weightless and careless” and enjoying “in a / summer stream of peace, bathed in new / gratitude.” The borrowed line fits your Golden Shovel so well. It makes me want to go and jump in the pool right now when it is scorching 103F outside. Thank you for sharing!
Stacey, you’re showing us the flexibility of the GOLDEN SHOVEL format. Rather than being “constrained” by the form, you float along, letting the memories billow in soft waves, or shall we use your word, “ripple”. The poem begins tensely, poised, then relaxes as the story unfolds, “bathed in a new gratitude.”. Nicely done, my dear. Nice!
Every piece starting with “I” drew me in. I think the present tense made it especially powerful. Thank you for sharing this poem and memory!
Ooo, Stacey— This is a gorgeous poem. The sense of being in an almost amniotic state is just divine. I live the “weightless” and the sense of emergence…like a goddess out of the sea. This image: “the buoy where home and freedom start”—- so rich. “…bathed in gratitude “… great stuff. Sending hugs, Susie.
This is a great story Stacey and reminded me of all the times I spent in the summer lying afloat in the pool, listening to nothing but the birds and sounds of water hitting the wall. It is truly a place of peace and tranquility. Thank you for reminding me of this!
ASDF JKL;
It could be
a dark and
stormy night
or the best
of times (or,
for that
matter, the
worst of
times, I mean,
the clocks
could literally
be striking
thirteen at
this very
moment), and
hey, maybe
you woke up
feeling
invisible or
like some
monstrous
vermin
newly
awakened
from some
unsettling
dreams,
or, I don’t
know, maybe
you’d simply
prefer to be
called Ishmael,
content to row
your boat against
the current
ceaselessly
into the past,
or maybe,
just maybe,
you’re Roland
Deschain and
you’re the
gunslinger
following a
man in black
across the
desert,
remembering
the face of
your father,
but regardless
of whatever
move you make
or whatever
step you take,
Sting will,
undoubtedly,
be watching you,
and that is
decidedly
a bit creepy,
but, more germane
to my point (and
this poem),
you’ll be using
these Home Keys
as your guide.
_________________________________________________
Shelby, thank you for your mentor poem and your prompt today! I really enjoyed the “shortcut[ting]” of your beginning leading into the actual hair cutting of your later stanzas. (And as a bit of advice – that was totally unasked for and probably not needed, lol – though it may be overwhelming at times (strike that, it will most assuredly be overwhelming at times), remember to try and enjoy your first year of teaching!)
I read this one, with all the amazing allusions, really concerned as to the direction…once again, you pulled it out! My hero…
Wowsa! I love how you do this. It has been a long, long time since I thought about the Home Key!!
I got a chuckle out of this chunk “or whatever / step you take, / Sting will, / undoubtably, / be watching you, / and that is / decidedly / a bit creepy”. Thanks for this gift today, Scott.
Scott, thank you! I followed your poem through all the “could be,” “maybe” “just maybe”, and “I don’t know,” and “bit creepy” somehow trusting that you’d bring me to “these Home Keys.” You made me smile as usual.
I always love poems that use some kind of informal, impassioned address like this one 🙂 thank you for the poem and for your advice!
Scott, I was so at home here in your poem, starting with the title/Home Keys play and all the wonderful allusions, books with which I am home, and I probably shouldn’t confess this in a public forum but I have a rubbing from Fitzgerald’s grave, framed…because we ARE borne ceaselessly back to the past… this was a pure delight to read!
Scott,
I think I may just make a little booklet of your poems so I can read them for a smile that inevitably comes no matter how crappy the day. I just love how you go from point A to point B and take us along.
The home row . . . how perfect. A reference most young folk probably don’t even know sadly.
Thank you for providing the clue (which I missed) at the top. SMH, of course ASDF JKL;. Another fun read!
Thank you for hosting today, Shelby. I can’t wait to try this prompt with my students.
she brought me immeasurable shame
with her loud scars and shape and the
invisible secrets but
she has insisted she
is tender, reminds
me she’s sacred
that she, this
body, is
home
Britt,
I appreciate how you leveraged the pronoun to create just a little unsettling or discomfort or wondering. I had to refine my thinking with each line as I pondered the “she”. I was thinking of mom, then friend, then boss and then, yes, the body. The body. Home. Body as home. So much to ponder here. I am wondering about belonging and body and home. Thank you so much for this poem. I need it. She, my body, needs it. Hope I am interpreting this right.
Sarah
Oh my, Britt. This is the mental wrestle of so many of us, I think. I was so fearful that the “she” was an important ‘other’ woman in your life – why does it make me feel better to realize the “she” is you? Clearly, I have more mental wrestling to do! We should not be so hard on ourselves, we should be more understanding and accepting. Excellent poem. Love how you use the nonet form and land on ‘home.’
Mic drop, Britt!! I didn’t expect the turn to reveal body as your home place. Clever! I wonder if our bodies will ever listen when we beg them to shut up!
There’s so much to question and wonder about because if our bodies are indeed “tender” and “sacred” they should be kinder to our minds. Don’t you think?
Love this, Britt!
Thank you, Britt! I was just writing about mind and body in response to yesterday’s prompt. So, your poem hits close to home; yes, our body is home. I am so grateful to you for bringing it up and acknowledging that “she is tender,” and “she is sacred” –really crucial things to understand.
Britt, I feel every line of this poem. Our body is our first and forever home.
I really love the direction you went with the prompt 🙂 I especially love “she has insisted she is tender.”
Britt,
I love this thought that our body is a separate person. We can separate ourselves from this physical shape with all its deficiencies and weaknesses, but like any other space, we hope to feel at home in it. What a great idea!
Beautiful. The use of ‘she’ as a body shows so much strength and still fragile.
Shelby,
Thank you for your prompt and beautiful poem. I love lazy summer feel you create as you compare you and your friends coming and going like “outdoor cats.”
1970’s Summer in Ohio
Swinging and reading
Lost again in Narnia
Patient friends waiting
Blowing lion’s-tooth
Imagining big futures
Whispering wishes
Sprinklers in hot sun
A cool drink from garden hose
Homemade popsicles
Dashing through backyards
Capturing winking fireflies
Mosquitos biting
Muggy Cleveland day
Chased by muggy Cleveland nights
Ohio is home
Thank you for all these sweet, summery details! My mother also grew up in 1970s Ohio (thought not Cleveland) and this reminds me of her.
So many memory treasures here! Love this.
Tammi,
Your poem is the best of childhood memories! I adore every image!
That’s my favorite because I had completely forgotten the fun of homemade popsicles!
🌞
Thank you, Tammy, for sharing this wonderful place with us today! My kids live in Ohio, and I sort of consider it home too when visiting. Love your images of kind and warm childhood memories.
These details could be in a poem about my 1970s Indiana summers. So specific and so dead-on!
Welcome Shelby and thank you for hosting today. I wish you the best in your teaching career and my one piece of advice to you is “Do not conform to the norm”.
“Because I know I really know a place when I know the back way.” That line struck me as I thought awhile about what “home” for me was and then I was sparked by my interest in books. So after going back over most of the books I have read this summer, I produced something special. So thank you Shelby for putting my passion for reading and poetry together in one space.
Hearting Over My Emotion (HOME)
The saying goes, “Home is where the heart is”,
But sometimes my heart longs for a place
that doesn’t exist.
Meandering with Sasha
as she keeps losing her way to find
herself.
Hoping for justice for Lamb
in Jackson,
Mississippi.
Flowing magic while flying
the trapeze with Luxe Revelle,
Seeping the depths of water
belonging to Simi and the other Mami Wata.
Fleeing Siagon on a prayer
and half-full dreams with Hà and her family.
Surviving at sea on broken promises
on Lifeboat 12 with Ken and his friends.
I can’t swim.
As I’m drowning in words of anguish, love, pain, glory, fight,
and hope
where my fingers absorb the print and spaces
on each page.
Sending my thoughts down
above and below,
forward and back,
upside-down and downside-up,
zigzaggedly, jagged paths.
As I turn to the last page,
I finally exhale,
releasing all of my emotions
as I find my way Home.
-Jessica Wiley
July 18, 2023
It’s been so fun to see all the different directions people went with this prompt, and your poem embodies that! Your students are lucky to have such a passionate reader as a teacher/role model! The first three lines also open the poem in such a perfect and intriguing way.
Thank you for the compliment Shelby!
Jessica,
Absolutely love the way you’ve captured the journey we take as readers through the pages of a book. “I can’t swim” is so poignant. That feeling of literally drowning with the characters and then the relief in finding our way home with the friends we have found in the pages is palpable.
Thank you so much Tammi!
What an ode to reading! Jessica, this is phenomenal. I am spellbound by
Thank you Maureen, that was my goal!
Readers are so lucky to find so many homes and you do an incredible job of capturing that. Your students would love to read this and to write similarly.
Thank you Susan for the compliment and idea! I need to create a lesson around this!
Jessica, what a brilliant poem. I love your acknowledgment of the characters in the novels you’ve read. Their lives often feel more permanent than imaginary. Loved the active voice and fast-paced verbs.
So true! Thank you so much Barb!
Heart-Homes
What is it about grandparents’ houses?
Perhaps it is the love that flows through them,
unencumbered by day-to-day thorns.
They hold a place in my heart like no other.
Two homes. One child. One heart.
One in the city,
cousins close by, ready for play,
a piano to sing along with, stairs to scurry on,
coffee always brewed in the silver pot,
the smell of fresh-baked bread.
My grandmother at her sewing machine, making my dresses,
handing her seamstress-sorcery down to me through trial and error.
Playing poker on the couch, my legs too short to touch the floor
Breakfast with Grandpa in the tiny kitchen.
Coffee and skorpers* to dunk, just Grandpa and me on Sunday mornings.
No one else.
Grandma’s cackle-laugh, Grandpa’s sturdy love.
Sidewalks for hopscotch and hand-in-hand walks to the bakery.
Brick streets gleaming red in the rain
and a front porch for watching cars go by.
One in the country,
Grandma grading papers in the evening, bent under the light,
a fire in the fireplace, the heat-vent inflating my nightgown–a flannel balloon.,
Grandma, in the narrow galley kitchen, cooking game from my grandfather’s hunt,
or beef from the farm down the road.
Books and books and books just waiting to be read..
Chickens chuckling in the backyard, beagle puppies to tussle.
Dragonflies glistening their way through the cattails around the pond,
frog peeps rising, birds trilling…
A golden glow over the fields behind us, beckoning us for a quiet hike.
The sun setting over the lake we overlooked, a brilliant orb
moving down into the bluest water.
Left behind, but always present.
Heart-homes.
*Skorpers are a uniquely Scandinavian treat-sort of a cinnamon/cardamom zweiback prised for their ability to hold up when dunked in hot coffee.
GJ Sands
7/18/23
I love all the nostalgic, specific images, especially “Playing poker on the couch, my legs too short to touch the floor.”
Beautiful memories here, Gayle! As a grandmother myself, I am particularly awed by your focus – I should go back in time and write about my grandmothers’ homes. Just lovely. “Two homes. One child. One heart.” – just precious! I want to try a skorper!
Gayle — I love the way you contrast the city with “cousins close by to play” and country with your grandma “cooking game from [your] grandfather’s hunt.” It is apparent that love exuded from both of these two heart homes. Beautiful imagery!
Oh my goodness, Gayle, what a blessing of a childhood with grandparents in two homes to love. I am, of course, partial to the countryside, and your descriptions of it are so real and vivid here. That last line…..left behind, but always present. Heart Homes. Such truth, these chambers that live on in our hearts and minds, places that still provide refuge and comfort when we need them.
Gayle, skorpers sound fantastic, exactly the flavors I love – and those idyllic country scenes are so like many of my own with grandparents! I was a city girl who always felt at home there, too – grandparents have an unparalleled way of making you feel loved and wanted, and that you belong.
Gayle,
While I read the entire thing, I couldn’t get past the line
because it’s just so perfect.
So many kids/families are missing out on generational love and escape and that unconditional love that grandparents provide.
Gayle, I love your title and the way you show what a Heart-home is. Loved the imagery throughout especially in the second to last stanza. “moving down into the bluest water” is magical. Thanks for the background note, too.
Gayle – This poem just lays out a marvelous retrospective of place…. We share a lot of images and it feels like I’m there with you in many corners. The bread, the poker, the dragonflies, I love this poem. Susie
PLACE AND HOME
My place was…
not to speak unless spoken to;
instead,
I learned to write my words
inside my head
onto paper
across screens;
at the table
one deft hand slap
to the right of Dad;
I learned
to measure my distance;
in the front seat
right behind Mr. McGee,
the yellow bus driver,
for the hours and days
we rode to and from the farm,
he keeping a close eye on me
all through my first grade year
while I sang
“Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall”;
on the Honor Roll
in high school sending me
to three Cardinal games every summer
so I could watch
Lou Brock slide,
Bob Gibson’s fastball,
Curt Flood’s Gold Glove,
Tim McCarver catch,
Julian Javier’s double plays,
and the Cards roar to the Series;
in line
one slot shy of getting season tickets
to watch the Tigers rip the girdiron in ‘69;
instead,
I marched for McGovern,
mourned the massacre at Kent State,
made a couple lifetime friends of great women
who made a difference in the world;
on the height ruler-markings on the wall
that kept me the second tallest female in my family;
my view above the fray
let me see
why and where and how
to fly;
in the books
always marked with marginalia, post-it’s;
reminders that books
move minds.
My place
became his place
and his place
became her place;
I was out of place
but on to a better place.
My place?
Home.
I’m at home
when rainbows
follow cracking thunderstorms;
when a stronger hand
folds understanding
around mine;
when the kestrels
scree-scree
in the overstory of the oak;
when Rayo throws her weight
against me
while we watch a movie;
when I smell the loaf
almost ready
to pull from the oven;
when John Prine trips off
to Paradise
in Muhlenberg County;
when Leonard Cohen
frees yet another verse
of “Hallelujah”;
when I feel Mama and Watty Boy
listening to another pounding
of Pachelbel’s Canon in D;
when my words find
my chords,
and music
pulls your lips into a smile,
your eye lines into dreams:
my place.
by Susie Morice, July 18, 2023©
Susie–reading through your poem, I see the same generation, and the same time frame, but different ingredients… I absolutely love your move from the amazing details of your past to the feeling-full details of your now. WE all find our new home, don’t we?
I love how you delineated place from home while creating such vivid images of both. Thank you for sharing, this was wonderful to read, and I’ll be thinking about it again!
Powerful poem, Susie – so full of memories and passages and all the growing up we do through the years. I particularly love the use of “place” in these lines, how the meaning shifts – and I hear your steadfastness, your fortitude –
Susie,
I love how you show the progression of life through your poem and the marking of time on the wall with your height was a really nice touch and great image. I felt that by then end of this poem you had found your home and peace within yourself and with your family.
Susie, there is a shift from beginning to end within your piece, a movement from not speaking unless spoken to and burying those words onto paper to the music (the “hallelujah”!) of your words finding your chords and the claiming you make of them that I find beautiful. And then there are all those details in between that show a life fully lived, a rich life, a satisfying one. Wonderful imagery and poem!
Susie, your poetry takes me on a journey right with you, there so close I can smell the rain of that thunderstorm and see the rainbow in these favorite lines
Home.
I’m at home
when rainbows
follow cracking thunderstorms;
when a stronger hand
folds understanding
around mine;
You speak of the stronger hand, and I can name them, too, one by one, those who were there, knowing but just breathing with me through difficult times.
I love your place. I want to crawl up in these lines and stay there for a while.
Susie, every stanza rings with emotion and power – the images so vivid and real, like movie scenes – with the movement, I am struck, anew, by how fast life goes. And how relationships make home and “place”.
Susie, your poem is beautiful and mesmerizing. I love how you show so many important life moments, but also what really moves you like the kestrels “in the overstory of the oak” and the songs and books you enjoy. Your final stanza is riveting. I’m totally captivated and feel like I’ve experienced a particularly vivid and moving experience. Magnificent poem.
Thank you for today’s inspiration, Shelby! This is such a great description of ‘home’ – “I know I really know a place when I know the way back”
I took a very light approach, thinking about our ‘temporary home’ these recent days –
wash me!
our home away from home
a sordid sight this car
clothing, backpacks, toys, tomes
snack wrappers also mar
hiking debris mud, stone
traveled so very far
journey’s end so well-known
grab vacuum and soap bar!
“A sordid sight”–have you seen my car’s interior? Love this summary of what sounds like a wonderful vacation!
A tiny home on the go, I love it!
Haha! Maureen, how I can relate to this!! When my kids were smaller, I think we could have been stranded in a snowstorm in the car and lived for days on dropped food from under the seats. Loved it. <3
Oh yes! I know this car! Mine looks the same way after a vacation. But you know that you are living when you come back and have to “grab vacuum and soap bar!” Your poem really cements the truth of home being where your people are.
I love the rhyme and rhythm and the reminder that my car is in need of a wash.
Cars and Homes on the road can tell so many stories by what’s not only inside, but also stuck to the outside (MUD)!!
We have scattered our ashes.
We have accepted the remains, preferring the journey away
rather than toward each other, and we have welcomed space
and we have called survival the way of being we share.
And now we are here. There.
Your door is open yet so far away.
The welcome mat waits for the shoes.
The dishwater waits for the residue of a shared meal.
Standing here ashes scattered there
has its comforts: no half truths or partial lies.
Yet we still have a shared soil stirring under skin
that the ashes may nourish so we can grow home again.
Sarah, there is a peaceful calm in the welling of a churning past, perhaps regret, perhaps just the complacent biding of time until wounds heal or fester more. The lines
preferring the journey away….
…rather than toward each other
are so pivotal, such a backdrop yet main character in the painting. I feel this in family situations where death has happened and all of the ashes are like a tornado in the wind, swirling and never quite settling. This speaks volumes to me.
This is beautiful Sarah! “Here, there, toward, away”- I don’t know why I picked out these four words, but I feel like they help me understand my sense of how I define home. “…that the ashes may nourish so we can grow home again.” To grow home again takes cultivation, love, honor, respect, time, and work. It’s a place I want to go back to, to learn to love again, and to share with others. Thank you for sharing.
:
These lines–“The welcome mat waits for the shoes./
The dishwater waits for the residue of a shared meal”– carry so much sorrow in them. the last stanza heals, or at least hopes to heal–those sorrows. I understand this so completely. Maybe we all can grow home again. I am not sure I can…
So many awesome lines. I especially love, “The welcome mat waits for the shoes. /
The dishwater waits for the residue of a shared meal” and “we have called survival the way of being we share.”
There is an underlying story in this poem. I feel it tugging at my heart. The ashes repeated are visceral and how you end with ashes that may “nourish so we can grow home again.” I feel a depth that I can’t quite grasp. Mystery? Grief? Family?
Sarah, there is much mystery and sadness in this poem… this idea of “so we can grow home again” speaks to such a hurt, a separation, a hard loss. I have read through this several times and feel it speaks on many levels – perhaps personal, perhaps a testament to how we have messed up our world. Thought-provoking!
Sarah, I am struck by the word “grow” in the line “that the ashes may nourish so we can grow home again.” It’s a beautiful re-imagining of going home again. Family is much a living entity, one that changes and shifts, growing and ending and perhaps dying. I wonder about the “we” who have scattered “our” ashes – it is not the burial of one individual but of the whole. And then there’s the separated “your” appearing just once. Hugs.
Sarah, your lines are hauntingly beautiful. There’s a stillness in them, a peace emanating from them…maybe from the acceptance within. So, so lovely.
Sarah, your poem is so poignant. I was completely moved by “we have called survival the way of being we share”. The joining and parting juxtaposition is particularly provocative. I can feel the importance of the ashes and the “shared soil stirring under skin”. Incredibly powerful poem!
Shelby, good luck with your new teaching career, and thank you for hosting today. I adore the energy of your poem and that feeling of forever friends bonding.
My First Home and Family
outside a semi rumbles
across the Lincoln highway
I moon in the window
missing home, family, friends
behind my apartment building
my 1969 Satellite Supreme waits patiently
for the next ten mile drive to OJ
to the brick schoolhouse; my precious classroom
I remember the couch; the fire escape
wooden desks circled to share
wonderful celebrations, heartaches, despair
each precious face aching to bloom
Molly and Brian, Dawn and Linda
Dean and Clay, Carla and Jessica
I still remember their names and
how they taught me my first teaching steps
Barb Edler
18 July 2023
Barb,
I really got the feeling of the one-room school from this, especially as the Satellite Supreme waits patiently (like a horse) to take you back. I am loving on how you end with the children teaching you your first steps. How true is this? But, I am cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs over each precious face aching to bloom…the positive, growing, pain of potential.
Barb, this was just lovely! That last stanza just rang with tenderness. Loved this!
Barb, what a throwback to the times we hold so dear, the cars of yesterday, the dreams, the schoolhouse, classrooms, friends who show us the way. Those circled wooden desks are such a symbol of the neverending bonds of friendship and camaraderie. Fun memories here today!
Barb,
How precious! I was able to visualize the scenes you set. But my favorite two lines are “I moon in the window” and “how they taught me my first teaching steps”. I hope to have great memories of my continuing teaching career. It’s all about how we perceive. I believe those names showed you the most. Our attitudes, our hearts, and our minds- we are shaping the future right in our classrooms. Thank you for sharing!
Barb–you paint a heart-tugging picture of that first year that is so full of missing and joy. Thank you!
This one made me emotional! I like the idea of your first home as the first home you build. I wonder if those students realize how much of an impact they had on you 🙂
Oh, I am tear-eyed in the details. I am sitting in one of those wooden desk and looking at those precious faces with you. Thank you so much for bringing me into this space,
Sarah
Barb — I love the nostalgia of your poem…the looking back and remembering even the kids’ names…that is so perfect. Memories of “first[s]” are always poignant. The “fire escape” dates this to images that are still very ripe in my own memories of schools. My fave image is “moon in the window.” Hugs, Susie
Shelby, there were so many gem lines in your poem!
Loved the last line of your first stanza; the image in the third stanza; and the last two lines of your last stanza — all favorites! Beautiful and imagistic!
I wrote a couple of poems. The first was sad and wistful, so I shook myself out of it and wrote this draft of one that I plan on sending to my bestie, Randy, who lives in North Richland Hills, TX, and who I visit yearly and love dearly!
Plane taxis to a standstill, time for fun:
My second home in sweltering Texas sun.
We greet with glee, get started on our day –
To eat! Drop bags at home, then on our way.
Pet the dogs – all five – with kiss and cuddle
Then off to dinner! Indecisive huddle
results (big shock!) in Greek Feast, once again
We stuff ourselves, then hit the pool for Zen.
Morning finds us percolating coffee:
Bestie sleeps while I sink into story
Once awake, “More food!!” demands our tummies
First Watch: choice for breakfast, always yummy.
Then Grapevine Antique Mall for some antiquing
Laughing, pictures, unique finds we’re seeking
Lunch at Fuzzy’s – always such a treat!
Daiquiris (prickly pear!) just can’t be beat.
Now off to Fort Worth, Stockyards play is nigh
By this time, on a gleeful road trip high –
Buying candy, silver, rings, and stuff
Seems like I can never get enough.
Howay! To dinner next Across the Pond
(Scotch eggs and fish and chips, of which we’re fond)
Back to second home for dip in pool
The heat at least 100, must keep cool.
Walks for dogs in evening’s cooling shade
Then back to home for movies (def Bridesmaids)
Another sleep shuts weary eyes abed
Only to open them to look ahead.
Next morning, manis, pedis rule the morn
Breakfast, Bacon’s Bistro: Choices, torn –
Sausage gravy? Pancakes? Make the call:
OK, well…we decide we’ll take them all.
An eve in Dallas: Wicked, grassy knoll
Two-step at Round-Up next, that’s how we roll
Some Whiskey Cake serves to refine our palettes
Steak, sauteed: mushrooms, gravy, shallots.
And, finally, the trip is at an end
And I must bid adieu to dearest friend
But know that I’ll be back round like the sun
For one year more: Unbridled Texas Fun.
Wendy, what a wonderful tribute to a special place and all that you enjoy while being there. It definitely makes me want to go to check out the prickly pear Daiquiris and a dip in the pool which sounds like a must in 100-degree temperatures. I am sure Randy will thoroughly enjoy your poem.
Wendy, there is simply nothing like a girls’ weekend, visiting an old friend, shopping, swimming, eating, sipping (or chugging, who knows?), and walking dogs. All of these moments are priceless and I know are treasured throughout the year to get through tough days and look forward to the next trip!
Wendy, can I tag along next time? How fun! I long to go on trips like this with someone who I can call friend. “By this time, on a gleeful road trip high –” I would love to bask in euphoria as I hit the road, take in the tastes of sights, sounds, and wonder! Thank you for sharing!
Wendy–please, may I join you? This sounds like the best time ever! Loved the rollicking tempo and joy in this poem!
I’m sure Randy will love this! Thank you and thanks for sharing, especially all the yummy food. Our bellies know where home is for sure
Shelby,
Funny thing about home, there are places I lock into, but invariably it comes down to the people I am with. So much of home is where the heart is, and in that regard, my home over time has been a vehicle with my children as passengers. It’s not the destination, but the journey.
HOMEWARD TACK
The voyage of my secure childhood
sailed east and west through the heart of Indiana,
with safe passage ports like Avon,
Speedway, Plainfield and Brownsburg.
Each harbor synonymous with family
and ties to something deeper
that may one day be understood,
for now just heartbeat intrinsic.
My father’s ancestry starboard,
rural and dusted by gravel,
Mother’s side my spiritual port,
Indy and tied to the Brickyard.
So much of the journey now is
a stoic reflection on bulletins,
flower arrangements, and meals
provided by a church.
But as I chart my forward momentum
and my children gauge the winds of change,
we set our course by the quilt of family
dotting the heavens of Central Indiana.
Rex, as I read your poem, I felt you captured a great longing and nostalgic emotion of your childhood places. I appreciate the lines “that may one day be understood, /for now just heartbeat intrinsic.” since the way we feel about places can be difficult to describe or even comprehend. Your final two lines are stunning. Love “by the quilt of family/dotting the heavens of Central Indiana”. Provocative and powerful poem evoking a depth of emotion that is easy to relate to.
An entire lifetime in one stanza–
“So much of the journey now is
a stoic reflection on bulletins,
flower arrangements, and meals
provided by a church.”
I know that you will imbue your children with the quilt of family that created you…
I love how easily you convey an adventure, even when it’s through the familiar! My favorite lines are “My father’s ancestry starboard, / rural and dusted by gravel”
Rex, I love the tie to boating throughout your poem, especially with ancestry starboard and the spiritual port. Having just attended the funeral of an uncle, I felt connected with that fourth stanza and the subtlety of where the journey has brought you. The “quilt of family” is a beautiful image.
Rex, I grew up in a coastal area and I love the nautical imagery here. It works beautifully, building to that magnificent last stanza. I, too, chart my forward momentum, even though we are at times “borne ceaselessly back to the past,” to quote Fitzgerald and Scott today. so true, also, your point in the intro: it IS all about the journey.
Of course the familiarity of place names draws me in as a fellow Hoosier, but the overall feel of your poem just holds me. You express respect and longing for what made you, yet I feel there is a little bit of an unsettled feeling. Maybe I’m wrong. But I just love this poem!
Where is home? It depends on when? Thanks for the prompt that reminded me, once again, of the home we had when we might not have had a home together.
HOME IS WHERE WE ARE TOGETHER
We refused to be separated when mom became ill
We four, aged one year to five refused to be still
Who would house this rambunctious crew
With a brother, three sisters, two under two.
Grace and Elgie Bright, in a town of small country farms
Opened their home and gathered us in with warm open arms
Their children were in Air Force and college
Serving our country and gaining more knowledge.
There, among the pigs and rabbits and chickens
We had no inside toilet and no running water
Unless we ran outside and pumped from the pump
We learned of love, along with scrapes and bumps
She taught us to sing and memorize poems
He taught us to garden, feed chickens, and scrub
We had to help out at church and at home
Our home was our club, but here’s the rub
We seldom saw our mother except through the window
Of the second-floor hospital room.
We seldom saw our father who remained in the city
Working to help pay so our lives would bloom.
For five years, that was our home
But, we blossomed and bloomed; we experienced little gloom
And to this day we four remain a team
So, it was really much better than it would seem
Anna,
I appreciate the comfort in the quatrain and rhyme today and the way you share the lessons of place. This line speaks to me “He taught us to garden, feed chickens, and scrub” as I think about the lessons from my mother and the lessons from my father. How they shape my becoming. Thank you.
Sarah
This is a wonderful memoir poem, connecting the past hardships to how love and siblings pulled you through. Family is so important to our becoming who we are. Thanks for sharing this story. And in rhyme, no less! Save it to send out for publication!
Anna–What a wonderful memoir, and what wonderful people in such a difficult time. I am sure this experience is what cemented your team so fully. I am glad that you can look back with joy.
I love the reflection and rhythm in this poem. I have three siblings as well and am glad to hear about another team 🙂
Shelby, I can’t wait to write this later after I think about it a bit! On a side note: One of my Creative Writing students emailed me at the end of the school year to recommend Stick Season! I’m taking this as a sign that I have to listen to it today. 🙂
I’m glad!! I hope you like it
Shelby–haven’t even begun thinking about my poem yet, but need to comment on yours. Wow. Just wow. You had me at “because I really know a place when I know the back way” and kept me with you all through. That is a truism I never considered, and now I have to think about my “back ways”. Your imagery is perfection… Your students will be so lucky this year!
Thank you!!
Shelby, thank you for this invitation today. Nothing pulls on the heart like home… I can almost hear the Beatles’ song “In My Life” playing in the background: “There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed…” The memory of these places, and the spirit of them, really are the theme song of our lives. I am especially struck by the images of woods and shortcuts in your poem (I had these, too, growing up – you are right about these being a way you really know a place!) and the repeated cutting of hair, so symbolic of life and coming-of-age, here. Your lines are full of love.
Of all the places I remember and could write about…have written about…I chose my home now. I have lived here the longest. I became a grandmother here. I have learned a lot more about savoring here. Usually I try to make my title do more work, but today, there’s no other one that will do.
Home
In the first moments
of pale-pink light
the big brown rabbit
comes from the woods
to nibble away
at the clover
in the ever-thickening branches
of the crape myrtle
my husband and planted
years ago
I can spot hummingbirds
hiding among the leaves
always alone
never together
they dart, one by one
to the kitchen-window feeder
silvery-green females
perfect, pure
ethereal as fairies
a male, ruby fire at his throat
(brighter than the cardinal-flame
landing over on the fence)
impossible greens and turquoise
shimmering on his back
unaware of his utter tininess
he sometimes perches
atop the feeder
as if to say I am King
of this Water-Mountain
a pair of doves feeds
on the ground by the tree line
then takes flight on pearly wings
vanishing in the pines and sweetgums
where their nest is secreted
robins, robins everywhere
just last week
a speckled fledgling on the back deck
both parents in the grass
chirping ground-control instructions
the mockingbird in the driveway
strutting and stretching his banded wings
as if he knows how legendary he is
a trill of finch-song from a nearby tree
so plaintive I fear my heart may burst
and the bluebirds
oh the bluebirds
if only I spoke green language
I would explain that I removed their house
from the back deck
because it is about to be torn down
that I waited
until their unexpected second brood
flew out into the world
never imagining these parents
would return to the empty rail corner
a day or two later
clearly so puzzled
to find their house gone…
if I were the hermit wizard-woman
of this semi-enchanted nook
(as I sometimes pretend to be)
I would have known what to do
but my unmagical self did my best:
placing the birdhouse atop
the old wooden arbor
built by my oldest
when he was a boy
well away
from the impending deck destruction
and to my astonishment
the bluebirds have followed
their home
I do not yet know
if more eggs have been laid
In the house relocated
to the arbor
but as evening draws
and the pine-shadows fall
across the arbor
and the crape myrtle
and the big brown rabbit
back in the clover
and the old dog’s grave
and the old deck
about to be made new
I ponder
my length of time on this Earth
and the continuous carving-out
of home
how it goes on and on
a path forever unfolding before me
that I shall follow
like the doe in the little clearing
across the road
pausing for one long moment
with her two fawns
before disappearing
in the leafy green.
Fran, you’ve captured the magic of home, in all its various forms with all its various visitors and frequenters and shared dwellers. I love the idea of “green language” and must learn to speak it more, not only for the sake of earth but for the sake of me. I have enjoyed following the nesting birds/deck story and cannot express how grateful I am that they rediscovered home in its new location. Your kindness and care for them must be felt by the pair as well. Beautiful.
Fran,
I am in awe of this collective you created in such an early morning draft of writing. What you can do — incredible. I hesitate to pull a line because of the collective scene and each beings place within it — so vivid in the individuality and yet part of something and necessary to the community.
Sarah
Fran, I am right here with you, observing it all through the eyes of your poem. Oh, the bluebirds! Yes, they found their happy home. I love how you write “the continuous carving-out
of home
how it goes on and on”
I feel the continuous carving as I am aging in my space and creating a “Mamere Camp” for my grandchildren. They will have a home with me (as yours do with you). My sweet two year old Stella kept saying, “Mamere, can I sit on you?” Her father had to hold her close and tell her “Next time. Mamere’s belly has to heal.” I almost shed a tear. I wanted to hold her so bad.
Fran, the similarities abound. I, too, took pictures of a doe in a clearing yesterday. One spotted fawn with mama, curious about my intentions and braver than she. This is lovely birdsong in your poetry, these calls of our winged friends finding home again. Your idyllic setting there in the photograph just begs to the soul to slow down and breathe nature. Breathe life, and enjoy every single moment. Beautiful, as always. Disappearing into the Leafy green……I have a plant you named that rhymes.
Fran,
Your poem brought to mind “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” for me. There is so much movement and activity, but I feel a calming amidst it all. The little things, the things we miss, those are the things that can really define home, especially with nature.
Fran–all those birds, in all their splendor. So many images, so much loveliness. I hope the bluebirds are happy….
My favorite piece is the blue birds and green language, wishing you could explain to the birds. What a vivid description of home and you looking out from the middle of it!
Fran — Good heavens, this is definitely HOME in capital letters. The birds are my fave…those little cuties just seem to sing HOME in every song… saving the bluebirds’ house…so touching and I was so hoping they would follow the nest….yea! The poem sort of walks the path to and through your home…and it felt…well, homey. Cosy, worn by time and careful attention to all things peaceful. This was fun to read. Susie
Absolutely gorgeous! Your rich descriptions leave me in awe.
Shelby,
Thank you so much for being with us and providing such an awesome inspiration to write poetry. Your original poem is just incredible with a vivid sense of place(s). How fortunate you are to have multiple places feel homey to you. I love the idea of love both ahead of you and behind you, but I really lost this image:
I Feel Home
(with a nod to O.A.R)
I feel home
on the couch that sags
under my ever growing weight
swathed with a light blanket
and my laptop perched
where it should be
with the Today Show’s noise
mumbling in the background
as my companion.
I feel home
on the covered patio
built with inheritance
in homage to my parents
who lived simply in order
to leave a lasting gift
breeze gently flowing
sun gradually saying hello
the Martha Stewart faded cushions
providing comfort
as the current book does too
the soft chatter of the birds
my companion
I feel home
standing with crossed legs,
posture far from perfect
atop too-thin carpet glued to concrete
at the front of a square room of
block walls littered with posters and pictures
reinforcing content
and reminders of being a good human,
soft whisperings of teenagers
my companion
I feel home
with my Bomba feet
inside my Hokas
as I trod the asphalt of the loop
in our ‘hood
AirPods in my ears,
phone in my pocket,
podcasts or Spotify playlists
my companion.
I feel home
behind the wheel
of my Toyota Highlander
with its seat back way farther
than necessary to allow me room to breathe
sun roof open, windows down yet air on low
mindlessly making the stops and turns
when and where needed
to get where I have to go
the radio tuned to 100.9 WBDC
and country tunes
my companion.
I feel home
very few places
yet I always feel at home.
~Susan Ahlbrand
18 July 2023
Susan,
What a journey you tell here in the collection of scenes of home and the various ways of being. So specific and universal at once. I love the detail and the way I find myself saying — yes, I have favorite shoes for my walk around the loop and yes, I took have a saggy couch which I helped form. And yes… these are companions. I guess what strikes me the most in the whole of your poem is the way that what or who is present in each scene is you, the speaker. There is such belonging in that.
Sarah
Oh my, Susan, the details in this poem pop and pop and make your truly personal experience of “I feel home” a universal one. I want to borrow your anaphora and try it out. I think students could do this, too.
Susan,
I love the home as a feeling that you bring, having familiar things that ease those stressors of life. The “too thin carpet glued to concrete” stanza rings true in how classrooms can be home, especially those moments when the teenagers have the soft whispering going on, a teaching synching day. As someone who can stress anywhere, I love the sense of peace you bring with the last stanza…feeling home is being centered.
Susan–so many ways to feel at home. So many places you shared. I especially loved this:
“at the front of a square room of
block walls littered with posters and pictures
reinforcing content
and reminders of being a good human”
Isn’t that always our goal???
The ending–absolutely perfect! Thank you for your kind feedback and for sharing this poem.
Susan — I feel like I’m on your couch, on your patio, in your neighborhood, in your Highlander with the tunes… I could see you and felt like I was in these homey spots. So inviting! Susie
Susan, this is such a beautifully conveyed idea of home. Slightly paraphrasing a famous saying, yours sounds like “home where you are,” and it sounds so organic. Your rich imagery helps me vividly see your couch, patio, classroom, the road you walk, and the vehicle you drive. Skillfully structured too. Thank you!
Wonderful prompt. I love how you describe all the people coming and going as “like outdoor cats.” I found an old poem that meant home to me before my parents moved in 2019. I’ve revised it some to reflect my thoughts now that my father is gone and the house is sold. It was written in response to “When I was Young in the Mountains” by Cynthia Rylant, a Quick Write exercise from Linda Rief’s book.
When I was a Daughter at the Lake
When I was a daughter at the lake, I swung on the porch swing pushing off from a little plastic stool and listened to the squeak of the chains. Sometimes my father sat near me with his newspaper and a bowl of cereal. He’d look up to tell me a bit of news. “Listen to this!” he’d exclaim, and I’d laugh internally at his exasperation with the world.
When I was a daughter at the lake, I slept late, waking to the scent of coffee and pancakes, maple syrup, melting butter. Mom in her robe stood near the griddle and greeted me with a smile. “Good morning, sleepy-head.”
When I was their daughter at the lake, worries melted away like the sunset on the horizon. We’d talk and talk. Sometimes we sat silently and watched the heron fishing. Their presence was enough. Their love was enough.
Margaret-this one is a tear-stained poem for me. What solace, what love at that lake. I swung on your swing along with you…
Margaret, thank you for sharing this, especially the memory of your dad sharing out pieces of the newspaper. I really like that this poem emphasizes your role as a daughter so much. It’s not something we ever grow out of 😊
A beautiful tribute to childhood, family love, and reliving… I love the in-the-moment-ness of it. The scenes are crystal clear… and the ending lines absolutely sublime. I have lived this, too… with just a few changes in details. But that love…it is the same. It lives on.
You took us right there and evoked emotion. Wow.
Margaret, this poem is so beautiful and heartfelt. I love all the precious memories connected with the time you were “a daughter at the lake.” The line “ When I was their daughter at the lake, worries melted away like the sunset on the horizon” will stay with me. This is exactly how I felt being a child. Thank you for sharing these memories!
Margaret, that last stanza has me weeping for you and the loss of your father and this home at the lake. Such a beautiful exercise. I’m glad I came back tonight to look and see if you wrote about home in a poem too. Beautiful.
I love this prompt and have also often considered all the places I’ve taken bits of and have left my heart at over the years.
Italy
abroad
a short time
but will forever
be a favorite home.
new noises, language,
sights, history, churches
soon became familiar like old
friends, relatives, pets, memories.
the heat soon turned into cold and the
cobblestone streets couldn’t take me far
enough to get away from the time that I had
to hop back on the plane to go back to where I
can only look at the pictures of the home I once had.
Glad to give you a place to share about these reflections! I admire how easily you can make a place feel like home, “soon became familiar like old.”
klh, I love that you chose Italy! I think I left a little piece of my heart there in Florence, seated on a bench right next to Pinocchio, eating pistachio gelato with a clear plastic spoon. Your use of the word memories is so packed rich with what lingers from your time there. I hope you can find your way back soon!
I can’t help but see your poem in the shape of a set of steps taking travelers from one street to the next as only Europe can do. I feel this – “the cobblestone streets couldn’t take me far enough to get away from the time that I had to hop back on the plane…” There’s the push and pull of old and new world there with the cobblestones and plane. I have experienced that same feeling several times when traveling and hope to feel it again!
I love the shape and look of your poem, klh! Thanks for crafting it and sharing it with us!
Shelby, thank you for hosting us here today and I am glad you are enjoying this community. I’ll be listening to Kahan all day.
on the corner, hiding the laundromat
where the correct wind direction brought
faint smells of cleanliness & mold
+ a constant white noise
walkable from Epping Rd. station, #53
cheap, cardboard walls, left injuries from simple
bumps with the corners of mature textbooks
athletic scars, as it was former Olympian housing
Californication cd played as a morning alarm
drawing sickness from a previous time
but this was it now, home, a ½ world away
4 international mates, 5 different degrees, 1 year
we all heard each other’s cds, odes to our past
non-breathing roomies included VB empties
cheap pasta sauce, previously limp, yet alive angel hair
found its dried death cocooned
in various crevices of the kitchen
9/11 brought endless attempts at dialing
calling card digits, no connection
but the connection now is still strong
Thank you!
Where to start…I loved uncovering such a complex sense of place you described here. It reminds me a little of Elif Batuman’s novel Either/Or, how she portrays being in college. My favorite part is “we all heard each other’s cds”
Friendship, the real stuff, through the years – – I love the wakeup music alarm (oh, and I listened to the Stick Season song, too and liked it). What I love perhaps most is the rambling feel of the lines as they take us on a walk, across states, and land in a place of strong connection despite all time or distance. This is the stuff of friendship that stands the test of time, and you are blessed. I love your poem.
Stefani, I’m fascinated with how much of a picture these poems give of the writers. These words take us right into that moment in your life, let us sit with you in college with your roommates, allow us to catch the smells of mold and cleanliness alongside you. All of those specific details can only come from someone who has lived that life.
Shelby, yours is a beautiful poem today and an inviting prompt. I love the coming and going like outdoor cats. It’s such an evocative and exacting image and reminds me of the meandering and ease of early life. I’m not sure where I went today but I followed the words where they led.
Good Bones
I’ve known houses
all my life,
walked across their wooden floorboards,
nestled in the dust bunnies
caught in corners,
stood within the timbered frames
built from sticks and stones
and sometimes straw
I’ve known houses,
heard their stories
whispered from attic rafters
and calling from cool damp cellars,
breathed in the paprika
and sage
mixed with thyme
and time
I’ve known houses,
studied their bones,
tossed the trash
along with the remnants
of what used to be,
rebuilt rooms
to keep skeletons
behind, inside, within
I’ve known houses,
scattered their seeds
across land
and dug through soil
until roots
planted deep
took hold
latching on
to never let go
I’ve known houses,
opened and closed
their doors,
locked latches
and panes
safeguarding those inside,
looked under beds
for monsters
and finding
some
I’ve known houses,
watched them breathe
in spring rain births
and exhale
after the growing season
when children leave
and old age
settles
their dying bones
I’ve known houses
“I’ve known houses,
studied their bones”
This is the heart of your poem here, to me …
Kevin
Jennifer, I just love how you said you went where the words took, that experience alone is powerful. And your use of bones in various forms is lovely. Thank you for sharing today.
Jennifer, your repeating line “I’ve known houses” provides a smooth path through all the sights and sounds you provide in this poem. It sounds like you’re someone who has lived and loved and grown in a lot of places. Thanks for your beautiful thoughts!
I love how you tied together the physical parts of houses with the things they contain that we can’t quite put a finger on. I especially love the last full stanza.
Jennifer, the repeating line here is incredibly moving, with all of these ways you have known homes. There are times when we are somewhere and my husband wants the walls to talk, to share their history. I find myself in that moment, and love this line best:
I’ve known houses,
heard their stories
The stories. The people. The lives. The meals. The moments. The marriages. The births. The deaths. The dreams. The hopes. The fears. The living, all the living. It comes right through in real and huge ways with these houses you have known. A poem that transcends time, from full nest to empty nest and back again. Really, really beautiful!
Jennifer,
Nice. I love how you’ve taken houses as a concrete noun, and personified them and given them souls, and crankiness, and sorrow. You aren’t at home, as much as sharing time with your buddy the house. The house becomes a character in your life story, a shaman of sorts.
Jennifer — I like the whole notion of knowing houses. Yes, the bones…we do come to know our houses. I love thinking of houses as breathing…exhaling as kids move on. The images of skeletons an ghosts that protect and safeguard and breathe. You bring to life those old bones. Lovely top to bottom…roof to cellars. Hugs, Susie
Jennifer, I have heard the phrase “that house has good bones” but you have led us to so much more, with every lyrical line. I have often wondered what stories the walls in old abandoned houses could tell…what they witnessed. I watched this play out in my grandparents’ rural home place… the houses with the dying bones, they are dear to me. They have such a pull. I want to save them. I shall be rereading this poem many times…
Starting each stanza with “I’ve known houses” and then ending on that solitary line really works. And your details so richly described yet with economy make this dynamite.
Shelby, I love this prompt. I once lived in another country. As new teachers gathered in a conference room for orientation, a woman native to that country gave us a map of the world and had us trace a line from where we were born to all the places we’d been until that day…then she asked us to write. This prompt takes me back to that day and I’m off to write about that in my notebook. Thank you for this spark. It is wonderful!
I love this idea!
Thank you! That prompt is a great idea…now I’m tempted to do it.
Shelby, you’ve written a gem of a poem today – a precious stone of your youth, sparkling in a fine setting! The coming and going like outdoor cats and knowing the laps and couches, cutting through the woods with a flashlight with no safety valve yet – – and skinny dipping with a running start (and hopefully no running boob pain yet, either) – – the carefree days of youth are so strongly felt here that it takes me back to my own childhood where we had a path through the woods also and no safety concerns either. What fun! Thanks for hosting us today.
Recess Nonet
my elementary school playground
its blacktop hot as a griddle
sizzling in the island sun
where we rolled each other
in castoff car tires
spinning childhoods
dappled in
live oak
shade
Ah, yes…the fun of a castoff car tire. Those were the days! Love the dappled shade that covers all of this. Just lovely.
Kim, there’s something magical in “spinning childhoods” – the carefreeness, the gravitational pull of what is at our center, the frolicking nature of the word spinning with its loss of constraint. I love that you place us immediately on the playground with its heat and leave us in the dappled shade. It reminds me of how memories are both sharp and clear but also fade. And your words – every one is needed and feels oh-so-carefully chosen.
Sun and then the shade … perfect
Kim, I am imagining a “recess nonet” as its own piece of playground equipment! I just love the use of “spinning childhoods” here as well. Thank you for sharing!
Kim, I love the contrast between the heat at the beginning and the shade at the end. It’s a perfect sandwich of imagery that reminds me of childhood trips to the playground as well!
I love the line “spinning childhoods.” This also brought back my own memories of the blacktop. Thank you for sharing these little pieces!
Kim, I love the flow of your nonet. Your ending is especially endearing and I can just feel and see the “live oak/shade”. Beautiful poem!
Kim — I just am in love with the “spinning childhoods/dappled…” So gorgeous. And getting so much beauty in a nonet…no small feat! “Sizzling blacktop”…perfect. You put me right there. Susie
Oh, I remember the playground heat and coveting the shade, my southern sister! I especially love the line “spinning childhoods” – it has so many connotations. And I love that live oak. I wonder if it is still there, and how big. Your nonet flows just like a dream.
the bend’s where
we spent our
summer days,
the soft elbow
in the little river
and wooded pines
providing us a place
for us to play, the holler
of our families
calling us to dinner
just beyond
an ear-shot
away
formatted version …
Kevin, I love the holler and am wondering if it is a geographical holler or a suppertime yell or both – – and I love what you’ve done with the formatting of the bend that also looks like a meandering river. And those last lines….just beyond an ear-shot away, gives the safety of staying in the fold.
oooooh, that soft elbow…perfect.
Kevin,
The formatted version really breathes life into the memory. There is so much depth to that ending, as I remember as a kid having so much fun we “couldn’t hear” mom calling from the house. Just beyond an ear-shot away is such a great snapshot from the great growing up memories.
Kevin,
I long to experience your special place in the bend! It sounds magical and healing for the body and soul. Beautiful format on the graphic too.
Kevin — I love the b e n d in your poem…the physical bend and the play on the word…the elbow…the holler in the setting as well as the call to dinner. All the sounds (there’s that wonderful musicality) and then out of “ear-shot”…dang, you write beeeee-you-ti-full poetry. Just so perfect. Susie
Kevin, I love the phrase, “the soft elbow / in the little river / and wooded pines”!
Kevin, I’m caught within that river bend and the softness of all of your words (bend, elbow, river, wooded). It pulls to mind the lazy summers of bygone days. I want to stay just out of reach too.
Kevin, thank you for sharing the formatted version, it is amazing how formatting can change meaning and add so much to our words.
Kevin, I already loved the comfort conveyed in your words, and the formatted version with the bend only contributes to that tone. The softness of your words, descriptions, and the “elbow in the little river” are warm and cozy. Thanks for sharing!
Kevin, thank you for sharing about this spot on a “body” of water feeling like home! Like many others, I appreciate “the soft elbow” line and the formatted version.