The Home POEMS

     So my cousin has been having to do some sweet poetry exercises in school. One of them involved a poem template where you had to write about your home and people. It had descriptions of what each line had to contain and so of course he passed the challenge on to me. Here's the template and our poems respectively. We loved doing it and seeing the similarities in our poems being best friends as well as family. Try it out my peoples!

WHERE I'M FROM Template

I am from _______ (specific ordinary item), from _______ (product name) and _______ (another). 

I am from the _______ (home description... adjective, adjective, sensory detail). 

I am from the _______ (plant, flower, natural item), the _______ (plant, flower, natural detail) 

I am from _______ (family tradition) and _______ (family trait), from _______ (name of family member) and _______ (another family name) and _______ (family name). 

I am from the _______ (description of family tendency) and _______ (another one). 

From _______ (something you were told as a child) and _______ (another). 

I am from (representation of religion, or lack of it; Further description).

I'm from _______ (place of birth and family ancestry), _______ (two food items representing your family). 

From the _______ (specific family story about a specific person and detail), the _______ (another detail, and the _______ (another detail about another family member). 

I am from _______ (location of family pictures, mementos, archives and several more lines indicating their worth).

My cousin D

I am from a charred brick fireplace, from Entenmann's and Disney and dancing outside during storms.

I am from the old house with an inexhaustible supply of hiding spots, love, and places to explore, whose pool is a lifesaver on hot July days and whose rooms are filled with singing and the scent of chocolate-chip cookies.

I am from the inescapable and malicious poison ivy patches on the edge of our ancient forest, the Japanese maple that’s superb for both climbing and family pictures.

I am from sleeping under the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve and sticking my head out the window on the way to the beach, from Grandmere and Uncle Tommy and Rollie. 

I am from exceptionally intense cousin wiffle ball games and never being the first to go to sleep.

I am from “always say please and thank you,” and “the ice cream truck only plays music when there’s no ice cream left,” and Pop Pop’s Chinese alphabet.

I am from Jesus being my homeboy and savior, from undeserved mercy and sobering sacrifice.

I am from Elkton, Maryland and Sofia, Bulgaria, from chocolate-covered strawberries, banitsa, and homemade pizza.

I am from the costumed midnight excursion to Wal-mart, the time we accidentally abandoned Brady in Greece, and all sleeping in the same room after we make it through the majority of a scary movie.

I am from how we run across the yard whenever siblings go off to college or cousins head back to their faraway homes, waving until the cars are out of sight and we already miss them like crazy.

I am from the framed snapshots that grace the skin of our walls like freckles, the old trunk full of memories in the attic, the worn pages of photo albums that bring us nostalgia and joy and sometimes to tears, and the home videos that we’ve all watched countless times and that we will all watch countless times more.

The Snod

        I am from sweet yellow corn fields and deep Maryland woods, where sunday night ball games echo and homemade ice cream churns.

I am from a house on a hill where bales dotted the summer fields, making perfect hay houses, the sun making your skin stick and mosquitos freckle your arms.

I am from lilac and Queen Anne’s Lace, pond algae stuck between my mud squished toes.

I am from wiffle ball players and law makers, nurses and car dealers, Williams and Rollins and Lee. 

I am from quick tempers and fierce love, where blood is thicker and grace abundant.

I am from vampire stories and blankets tucked thickly round my neck at night and  pulleys made on the back deck by older sisters.

I am from the ultimate sacrafice, blood running down a cross, a head hanging low bearing a burden that was not His. 

I am from the northeastern shore, humid air and blue shelled crabs, harvested and red in a pot and tomatoes, vine-ripe, their juices running down my chin.

I am from Rebels and Yanks, the line was blurred and I don’t know how I feel about Lincoln or Jefferson.

I am from a boy who fell in love with the girl, a picture captures them on the doorstep, his hand on her lower back and his eyes on her face.

  From a house on Rickets Mill road, where there are milk cows in the field and a golf cart in the driveway, where home plate is a bare patch of grass worn away by years of feet, and first base is often a boy cousins shirt, where Super Mario 3 plays late into the night and the light in the kitchen is always on.