In my notifications, I get “look back” compilations from Amazon photos. They’ll show me, for instance, 20 pictures from the same day from the last five years. These from Hawley, Mass. caught my eye.
For several years in August, I joined others for a writing retreat in this small hill town north of Amherst. I forget the beauty of the place and how much, as a Berkshires kid, I really miss landscapes like these.
Where feels most like home to you?
One more thing. While rooting around old files, I found this posted poem. I wrote it in June of 2017 — early in Mango Mussolini’s first reign, in other words. Parts hit hard because of that. I think it’s a good poem.
Have a great start to your week!
LOL, I thought you meant Josh. I was going to ick out!
Yuck. That would’ve been a RANT.
Just read your strong poem (Accidental beauty) of insight and beauty and horror, and note your comment on the poem “The chaos seems without edge…”
I am remembering that 8+ years ago I too saw chaos in that way, yet today I see chaos as more vast and deliberately cruel. I say that as a bewildered human, describing a feeling rather than truth, for which I have few words.
Doris
The words that struck me at this distance were “miscalculation of risk.” Thanks for reading. Life is a split screen and it just gets weirder and weirder. And scarier.
Dee~ Gosh what a peaceful spot! Do you wish to return? Good to revisit powerful, heartfelt words. xo
The retreats aren’t being held there anymore. It’s not air conditioned and August can be brutal in Mass.
Ahh…okay, got it.
Your poem is amazing and powerful and the pictures are dreamlike and peaceful. Thanks for sharing both.
Thanks for joining me here.
Split screen indeed: the lovely setting of your writing retreat with the words of your powerful poem. There are many responses I have to your poem but for some reason, this simple sentence, “ribbons of tar” lead me to think of the lack of kindness and heartless action of this regime in painting over the rainbow striped crosswalks at a nightclub to signify with respect, the lives lost, in the senseless killings of the LGBTQ community.
Kindness and time, another theme in your poem. Kindness will always trump meanness (pun intended) but so many mean-spirited, evil acts by this regime overwhelm. We are running out of time unless those in Congress and in our courts, grow spines…
To answer your question:”where feels most like home to you.” Rich and I have lived in many places, owned three homes, rented many others. When you choose to become nomads, the concept of home takes on a different meaning, less of a physical space and more of an inner one. The old saying, “any place I hang my hat is home”, well we found that some places, needed many hooks ! to hang our hats. In those instances, we found our havens, within ourselves.
The home of a nomad is worth thinking about. I moved so much as a kid that I vowed I wouldn’t put my boys through that. Now I feel a little stuck here.