POETRY: I Come From the West

I come from Ventura, from California
hiking through cattle to Two Trees, seeing
Channel Islands float in the sea, from
eucalyptus at Mound school, the quad at Buena.
I come from Aspen, La Honda, Taos,
Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View,
Los Altos, Peet’s coffee, Ridge Winery,
Stanford, Santa Cruz, Reno, Jackson Hole.

I come from driving halls delivering
fresh VC Press newspapers, from
reciting poetry on hay bales at
Renaissance Faires in Agoura, Larkspur,
Novato, from climbing the Collegiate
Peaks Yale, Harvard, Columbia, from
Yosemite granite, gym plastic,
Gibraltar sandstone, monkey bars, school roofs.

I come from mud between my toes, hail on
my head, sagebrush in my cuffs, hot springs
dripping from my curls. From burrowing owls,
red tail hawks, spotted owls, house wrens, finches,
peregrine falcons, bats. From bird nests,
cecil bruner’s, rose geraniums, pine.
From trailers, vws, stucco, tents.

From East winds and El Ninos. From
Sierra, Rockies, Tetons, Pingora,
Castleton Spire, Cascades, Mojave,
Great Basin, Coachella, Black Rock City,
Telescope Peak, Wheeler Peak, Badwater,
oceanwater. From sweat. From tears. From dew.

While it would be more obvious a connection to yesterday’s post about flarf and conceptual poetry to post a 315 experiment poem for today’s Monday Poetry Train, I am more intrigued by recent journeys into where I’m from.

Where are you from? How does where you’re from define who you are?

Once in February and once in June, I scoured my past to tell my story in as an evocative and poetic way possible in attempts to get the “best job in the world”–first, as Caretaker of the Great Barrier Reef, then as Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent. These journeys, as well as recent connections with old friends and journeys into facebook which takes me into the past, places me in the present, and offers me glimpses of the future, plus teaching Ray Carver’s short story collection Where I’m Calling From, led me to decide to post this poem today for the Monday Poetry Train. I look forward to adding some links and illsutrations. And finding out where you’re from! Post a link here if you write your own “where I come from poem” for us to go see!