Where I'm From - Yosha Bourgea

[Larry Robinson]

Where I'm From
(after George Ella Lyon)

I am from smooth clay,
from the rope swing over the riverbank.
I am from the acacia tree outside the sunstruck window.
(Blur of yellow,
the air particulated
like La Grande Jatte.)
I am from the old hammock,
brittle in the walnut shade
where I lay unseen all summer.

I'm from Gravenstein apple orchard,
from delicate dust and blackberry thicket.
I'm from warm trumpet brass
and the green Victorian,
from slim brown wrists and peeling white paint.
I'm from question authority
and you can't hug a child
with nuclear arms.

I am from the comfrey and the ivy,
from Occidental and the car won't start.
>From the rosehip garland my mother strung
in the stillness of the graveyard noon,
the maps of the moon and the ocean floor.
Under the house were boxes of books
limned by mildew,
the old photographs of faces
strangely young, before the eclipse
of the present overtook them.
They were smiling.
They didn't know
what in the world to expect. 

	- Yosha Bourgea