Origins

I am from front yard, summer time baseball games and a lazy moving creek……from rope swings hung from majestic oak trees and baseball cards hung on bicycle tire spokes by wooden clothes pins.

I am from the homes of brick in suburbia and the country, from woodlands spreading to the end of my own imagination.

I am from the iris and salsa, the Christmas cactus and bright flower petals for the season.

I am from oyster stew at Christmas and brown hair and brown eyes, from Matthew and Tabitha and Gilbert.

I am from the Southern conservatives and endless, unnecessary fighting yet I am conservative no longer.

I am from Grandmama running away from school to escape a paddling and wood fairies that flutter down from Maples in the fall.

I am from Southern Baptists and Wednesday night suppers at church....from Sunday School teachers who didn't like or understand The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Doobie Brothers, Dan Fogelberg or Bob Dylan.....the poets of my lifetime in this place.

I'm from Atlanta and Europe, Georgia and Tennessee; Lithonia and Oak Ridge... and fried catfish caught on the same day and Brunswick stew.

From the dad who, as a kid, stole watermelons from the farmer down the hill and cooled them in the creek, the grandfather who lived alone and sober after drinking his marriage away.

I am from the shoebox of photos, an ancient lock and key from a fallen brother’s treasure chest, a necklace whose twin was lost to a forgotten girlfriend, a wooden slide rule used by a father struggling with engineering and a key to a home I can never enter again.