I AM FROM

I am from the tracings of blue highways on wrinkled maps,
runaway bride, teenage optimism, and the hard realities of life.
Daughter of two kids from Wyoming, I am from a big sky
and a small town tucked in the shadow of Heart Mountain,
with its majestic rockscape and jagged edge of WWII history.

I am from a myriad of temporary homes, all the places I rested
my hat and hope, from Vacaville to Tacoma, from Carson City
to Lincoln. They say, “Home is where the heart is,” and my heart
was a shiftless wanderer. Postcard welcome mats, humming highway
miles, and truck stop dinners in the dead of night, bookmark
my story’s pages.

I am from the library, where the passports to my best voyages
rest on shelves lined up like a stone path of discovery.
I am from morning coffee in a kitchen quiet with morning
and the blue light of possibility.
Rarely afraid of change, I follow my own holds, anchor my own
feet. I’m just learning to rock climb, to tie my knots and rely
on my harness and belay below.

I am from the long trail reaching from Lincoln to Eagle, the
crushed rock that passes beneath my bike tires, the Nebraska
flora and fauna that flank the trail, and the cornfields I pass
during long, golden afternoons lost in my own thoughts.

I am from dark beer and light-hearted jokes, the cold marble slab
on my favorite bar, the nights slick with summer humidity
and the weight of the Midwest.

I am from Nowhere and Everywhere, from Here and There,
from Then and Now. My place is displacement, the frenzied
electric gap between what I know and why I think I know it.
I am from language and silences, from poetry and prose.
I am from the pages of my favorite books.