After George Ella Lyon’s “Where I’m From”

 

I’m from bookshelves

towering like the 

skyscrapers 

lining the horizon 

of my city-bound 

childhood

 

a menagerie 

of blinding lights

hordes of 

unwanted tourists 

flashing cameras 

on sticky summer 

streets 

 

Gridlock

piercing honks

a blur of pressed suits

concrete punctuated 

by a smattering of green

 

Now, though, 

I settle 

on a street that whispers

palm trees 

swaying to its quiet song

white roses 

drinking in 

the sun’s radiant milk

 

I’m from the smooth tip 

of my lead pencil

 

I line the 

wrinkled

pages 

of a dozen notebooks 

 

I am found 

beneath the scrawl 

in the margins

 

But I am also found 

beyond words

 

in silence

 

in the meditative rise 

and fall

of my breath

in letting go

of internal chatter 

in gently shutting 

my eyes

into a darkness

of peace

 

I’m from

the hilly suburbs of Romania

and the once vibrant 

cities of Poland

before the war 

 

From my grandmother’s 

steaming scarlet borscht 

and my great-aunt’s 

golden kreplach

 

stars and stripes 

color the flag of my birth country 

and I am found buried in the pages

of its history

connected to a past

my ancestors took 

no part in

 

I come 

from all of life’s most 

beautiful contrasts