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.

Novembering II

Good Old Days

On my birthday, we drove to Granite

To the cliffs and the river.

We watched the moon and the water

and the way the light danced like koi

silver and gold and grey,

an overcrowded fish pond

mesmerizing us into silence.

We watched in the dark, 

the four of us huddled,

back to shoulder 

 head to lap.

Wondering about life

and boys

and deodorant.

And I remember thinking, 

it has to get better.

I didn’t realize, 

in that moment, 

that night on the cliffs

river wind floating over the train tracks 

into our uplifted faces,

it was.

Novembering

Northbound

I’m waiting for a train to take me north.

To penguins 

and polar bears 

and ice caps. 

To where the wind steals your breath

leaving you panicked

and gulping for air

like the unfortunate swimmer 

rolled by the waves 

of white.

Your eyes burning

like salt on cracked skin,

forcing them to shut out the beauty 

of the icy world all around. 

Where my mind is so focused 

on breathing 

and seeing

that there is no room left 

for you.

More Ramblings from the mind of the SNOD

Flash Light Tag

You push me into my coat

and off the porch steps

I hear you shout 

as you leap frog over my head, 

and  start running,

blending  into the trees 

in the backyard.

I pick myself up

and I follow

you

tripping over my shoelaces.

Heart Surgery

In a hospital room,

you hold your girl

as they prick her finger, her arm, her heart.

and you calm her

and kiss her

and give her away to a doctor 

who is going to cut her open.

You smile till she’s gone.

Then you’re gone,

the you that held it together.

And I remember you

and me

in a hospital room long ago.

My eye cut open

by a sister and her bike gear

and I wanted you out of everyone else

to come with me.

At the Hospital, my first visit,

you stand beside me as they thread the needle

preparing to sew me up.

You held my hand 

as they patched the cut under my eye.

And now you sit in a room,

hunched down, 

holding your body to itself,

bravely waiting

for that baby to come back to you.

And I wish I was there to hold your hand.

To Paigie

My Grandfather’s Dress

A black taffeta hung in his closet,

standing amidst baseball hats and suits.

The lace pressed against barn-dirt sweaters

pleading to be worn.

I tried it on and displayed my vintage self.

I was a Gram mannequin.

Hair was slightly different but my face was like her.

He saw her

staring out

and the dress wasn’t old for him.

He saw their first date.

The camera capturing them on the doorstep.

His hand on her back as they danced

She exploded

into his memory.

‘You look nice,’ he said

and finished his ice cream.

-To my Pipop

O

Stopping on our way to the Library 

You begged 

to stop and rake leaves.

The same boy

who was too tired to finish our four hundred feet to the library.

So we raked.

I raked actually

you pushed branches around with a shovel.

We worked for half an hour,

clearing the yard on Second street

till we had enough.

You backed up,

Chariots of Fire played in my head

as you dove head first.

You rose up

throwing leaves  at the sky

forgetting how tired you were.

To our Tulip II

October 16, 2013

Dear Sweetie,

    It’s 11:08 p.m. I open tomorrow and should go to sleep but I can’t. I keep thinking about you. You have a big surgery tomorrow. A valve of yours doesn’t work quite right. The doctors knew it might come to this but we all prayed that it wouldn’t. You have to have open heart surgery. Sweetie, I felt pretty dumb not knowing how serious it was. Nanny told me about it while I was working and I looked it up and teared up on sight. Three percent mortality rate? What does that even mean? I stared at the i-pad screen through bleary eyes trying to make sense of what I had been told.

Your momma was a mess. She hadn’t known that this was the plan. They’re going to break your sternum and you are going to have a scar going up the center of your chest. It’ll still be you. Just a more worn you. A more lived in you. We all have scars, Sweetie. Yours is just going to be bigger and ultimately better than most. This scar is going to help your heart work right. Anything is worth that. We want your heart to pump soundly and clearly through many family dinners and summer nights. We want to hear you laughing at Oliver and his silly faces. We want to watch you dance to Robyn and see you “sasquatch it” down the hallway chasing Wyatt. Sweetie, you got this. I’m praying for peace for you and for your Momma and for your Dad. Be a brave lady, Sweetie. Remember what Christopher Robin told Pooh bear? “You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” I love you.