Verse Love: Day 4: Where Are You From?

 This morning at Verse Love, Kim Johnson asks us to choose a person and setting (passenger on an airplane, etc.) and introduce yourself.  She asks us to offer a glimpse into our world. I knew I somehow wanted to "honor" my one of my favorite "living" poets Amanda Gorman who hails from LA and gained "fame" at Biden's inauguration. 

Here's the imaginary, wanna-be-real-setting. I found myself moved to business class last minute where I was assigned next to a younger woman, eyes already closed. Her hoodie was pulled low and her earbuds seemed to be closing out the world. I did not want to stare, but she sure looked like my heroine.  I read and reread that same page again and again as she slept and I wondered what I'd say if she woke up. I was staring at the clouds as we passed over Kansas when she stretched.....and we shared destinations.... before she asked, "Where are you from?"

I lived in McKeesport just long enough to get certificate of birth

Not long enough to appreciate the pollution of steel mills before

In my mother's arms, we pulled our trailer to Terre Haute, Indiana 

Then Ohio, which did not generate any family worthy stories before heading

To Spring Valley, NY where Hasidic families lived as they believed

Risking lives, walking in the dark on the Sabbath before,

Heading to Meridian, Mississippi and then to Selma, Alabama where

First hand inequities of our society became more real in segregated schools,

Stores, even churches shocked even my dad who I thought was worldly before

Heading to HS in upstate NYS where everyone skied and I bridged to college at

SUNY Albany as Vietnam War protests raged on the quad, before embarking

On my college journey to Syracuse, NY and then the University of Maryland

As Watergate exploded, before

Stops in Murrysville, PA and Troy, NY as early married life unfolded before

Landing in Stormville, NY, on top of a mountain that really is that stormy where

I raised my children and found out how strong I really was before

Settling in a two-train town in Northern, NJ not too far from my precious grands

30 minutes from Fordham University, The Met and Broadway.

"That story should be a poem!" she said and I'll always believed I talked too much but gave her fodder for a real poem about me!