Today I'm driving up to Evergreen, about 15 miles west of Denver, to explore my old stomping grounds. I lived there for about 20 years, raised my kids there, and left five years ago to do new things. We go up every once in a while, @jimitations and I, to see friends or have lunch, but today I'll be shooting pictures of things to do in Evergreen for a contest @anomadsoul is hosting for #my2018: take your Steemit followers on a tour of your hometown.
I don't really have a hometown anymore, traveling back and forth between Denver (my sons) and Orlando (for work). So Evergreen will have to do because that's where I spent the bulk of my adult life. And I was just about to hop in the car to head up there, when this anticipatory image drifted into my internal field of vision. Thought I'd jot it down before leaving...
Jilted Town
A back road,
curvy as the waitress
pouring coffee
in this diner you hit just
outside town.
Odd thing to notice
for a middle-aged woman
returning home.
Raising children so distracted you
then
that you missed these little details
staring at you
from under the clumpy,
lengthened lashes
of your old hometown.
After diapers and playdates,
lunch pails and graduations,
and a year-long divorce,
you moved on.
And so did your town.
She sees you coming
and turns from the window,
letting the drapes fall.
Think you'd like to wash up on our shore?
The treasure map will bring you right to our door!
This is powerful! I had to read it a few times for it to fully sink in and grasp the true sentiment of it... As a writer all my pieces come out really huge... so I'm always fascinated when people are able to so delicately articulate themselves and their feelings in short poems like this.
I loved reading it. Thank you for sharing and I hope the visit back 'home' wasn't as cold as you may have expected.
With love
Hart Floe
<3
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
The coldness probably comes from me... hard to go back and see places you remember driving by with a three-year-old boy who's now 23 and recently crashed his mountain bike and got a bad concussion, which makes you think of him as three again...
I went up that day (it's only 30 minutes from where I live now) and again today for more pix for the contest post, and today I took my 15 year old son up to practice his driving. He drove by the house of the friend he'd known in preschool. I used to drive that road a lot when this 15 yo was an infant. The drive was odd and fun and nostalgic and sad. And it's that pain that I think I'm projecting onto my diner-waitress image of Evergreen. Anyway, thanks for sharing your reaction. I appreciate all the reactions people leave, but don't always have time to comment on each one!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Well... I really appreciate you taking the time to comment and add to the story here. It gives me more context of course! Life is funny... memories, nostalgia, sadness, missing, joy, bliss - such a rollercoaster ride of emotions... but it's just a ride right? Whatever happens... we gotta make sure we enjoy it :)
I look forward to having children very much... and all these strange feelings and weird moments that will come as they grow old and things change and warp and mutate... it must be a strange sensation.
Anyway really great to read this and feel the emotion through it, and thanks for taking the time to respond here :) It's increased my connection to the poem and the sentiment found within... and of course with the author!
Great to have found you and the Isle of Write so early in my journey on Steemit... super grateful!
Thanks again :)
With love
Hart Floe
<3
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I loved the personification of the town. The town's heart is broken and the poet persona's return is treated with disdain. I loved the poem.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
we go back home when hearts remembering a collection family fun we have, happy tears come out when you embrace the people you miss them,......that green and river remind me of going back to my home l miss my grandmother she is 118 years now strong and health no place like home. Thanks for this memory
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
You can never fully return home. Too much water under the bridge. You've changed and grown. Perhaps home hasn't...
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
The last stanza was quite powerful; unexpected. She's letting you know, that it's not your home(town) anymore, in a very cold manner.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thanks @poetrybyjeremy... yes, I'm sorta feeling like I might get a cold reception, or I'm projecting that anticipation... something I feel I deserve for abandoning the place
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
What a lovely exploration you share in this craft, @geke. Must head up to Evergreen. I am looking to explore about on some of these warmer days ahead (surprisingly...or perhaps not) in February.
The poem really caught me in the throat. Powerful, my friend.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
that treasure map makes me feel like going on a treasure hunt !
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Those last four lines... and suddenly the emotional content of the poem is revealed. It's hinted at in "you missed these little details/staring at you/from under the clumpy,/lengthened lashes/of your old hometown", which has a kind of wistfulness about it, but emotionally offers little more than that, coming across as a philosophical musing on the selectiveness of perception, with an abstracted, detached tone. The whole poem seems to have that certain quality of detachment that comes with both travel and philosophy (which is so cool to me, when the form fits the subject matter). And then: those last four lines. And suddenly you've arrived, you're standing there, no longer meandering, feet planted on the Earth, in the place you once called home, recognizing that it isn't. Great poem :)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
And suddenly you've arrived, you're standing there, no longer meandering, feet planted on the Earth, in the place you once called home, recognizing that it isn't.
^^^^^ That's poetry, in itself.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
LMAO I've noticed that happening a lot with poets trying to comment on other poets' poems. I think it's funny and also so awesome, that cross-fertilization. We inspire each other :D
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
i wish every read caught me off guard laughing so quick, @geke, and it was this lighthearted laugh you set that caused the shift in tone to be that much more impactful!
Time passes which is so often attributed with changing feelings and belonging and home. It is this frequent use of time as the variable that made your use of your experiences and actions as the variable of change so much more refreshing! It so clearly leads the narrator to look at a place through multiple lenses.
deftly done.
If home is where the heart is, it shows in the words here that it is 100% and truly in your family, and how lucky your kids are to have a home in you and each other.
Thank you so much for the share, Stephanie, insightful and reflective read
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Good post and happy to follow you
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Congratulations @geke! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPDownvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
@geke, I'm glad I caught this one! I love the way you told this story. By letting the scene unfold in the details...I felt as if I was coming to the realizations along with the narrator. It's a great write. Good job.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit