Poetry Friday: The "I Am From" Project

I couldn't decide what to post this week. Yeats? Billy Collins? The always amazing Richard Wilbur?

I was dithering, so I started flitting around the Kidlitosphere and saw that Tabatha had posted a "Where I'm From" poem. (Hey, I remember those! I wrote one ages ago. Thank you, Tabatha, for this week's inspiration! W.B., Billy, and Richard will have to wait. Also? I'm stealing your idea to include a picture, Tabatha. I'm all about stolen ideas this week.)

Tabatha's post led me back to Heidi Mordhorst's blog, and this explanation of George Ella Lyon and Julie Landsman's beautiful project. Be sure to go here to check out the details of the I Am From Project, and consider writing one yourself.

In the meantime, here's where I'm from.

Me, age 7

I Am From 
Karen Edmisten

I am from knee socks,
Hostess cupcakes
and black patent leather shoes
worn home from the store.

I am from coast to coast,
from everywhere
and nowhere,
the child of a pilot and his bride.
I am from Air Force base housing,
plain vanilla walls
and Barbie clothes sewn from Thailand’s silk.

I am from hollyhock dolls and walking to school,
from dandelion bouquets,
from Alaskan glaciers
and from the sun rising on a Florida coast.

I am from summer car trips
to Grandma and Grandpa's,
with stops at Lookout Mountain
and the Truman Museum.
I am from staid New England stock,
from Indiana folks,
from John and Norma,
Madeline and Jim.
I am from lightning bugs in the backyard
and the sleepy scent of Noxzema.

I am from “Be polite” and
“Do your best,”
and “Goodnight, John-boy”
at bedtime,
from “I’m rubber, you’re glue,”
and from “Nuh-uh is not a word.”

I am from a squishy pillow at the drive-in,
and a six-year-old’s delight in the
dark, safe cocoon of the car.

I am from Santa Claus
and Easter eggs,
dinnertime grace,
and prayers
that faded away.

I am from Germany,
Scotland,
from home cooked meals,
doll-cakes on my birthday,
and home-sewn clothes
that made me proud of my mother’s skill.

From Grandma, who thought I loved peas
because I gobbled them up
(to get rid of them),
and from Grandpa, who convinced me
that a signal tower
was his own private Christmas tree.
I am from my grandmother’s way
of smearing butter on a scraped knee,
and taking me to “the groc'ry”
no matter what store it was.

I am from Mom, who decorated
the house for every holiday,
and took us blueberry hunting by the creek;
from Dad, who told me that thunder
was giants bowling in the sky,
and whose hand holding mine
was all I could see at the airport
when he came home from a year in Korea.

I am from Air Force brats bonding
through a shared, strange life,
from a 1960s family who taught me
without words
that “skin color” meant nothing
and “human being” meant everything.

I am from nomads,
from possibilities, and from imagination.

I am from a longing for roots, found finally, and only, in God.

~~~~~

Margaret has the round up this week at Reflections on the Teche.