Is There Poetry in my Home Town?

So I'm back in Michigan, directing a play in the town where I was born. I miss the mountains and the solitude and shooting 8-Ball at the Owl, but it's been interesting returning to some of the places of my childhood.

I drive down a street in my old neighborhood and memories come flooding from every porch and stoop. I step into a corner store and see myself buying penny candy with my birthday money, feeling rich. One may think that all of this would prove fertile ground for poetry; but, so far, nothing. The only thing I've written since being here is a piece that takes place in Kalamazoo.

I was there for a reading recently. A really wonderful night. Great crowd, reception, free beer, good dinner with friends. Caught up with old poet comrades; and met the subject of the one thing I've written since I've been back in my hometown. Or, started to write, that is. Haven't found the ending yet.

Anyway, the point of this is simply to ask: "What the hell?" Where's the flood of words to go with the flood of nostalgia? Maybe I left my writing soul back in the mountains, and am left to flounder here with the other six souls that bounce about within the walls of this morbid boil.

Time to shuffle off.

Behind the "Elegy"

This month's Poem-of-the-Month at CrowVoice.com is a new, unpublished piece called "Elegy."

The cabin where I live (the "Grizfork Studio") is on the east side of the Yellowstone River in an area of Montana called Paradise Valley. In many ways, it's a fitting name. My "backyard" is the Absaroka/Beartooth Wilderness, and I've decided to focus on a small section: the treeline along the south fork of Deep Creek directly behind the property I'm living on. I hike there often, and try to get to know it as I would a friend or lover. To connect. Understand. Be amazed by. Love. To get there, I pass through a rising pasture that's divided into four fields by old ranch fences.

The first section I've named Spirit Owl Field, in honor of the experience discussed in this month's poem. Since first finding the owl, I've stopped by several times on my way to the treeline and mountains, usually bringing tobacco. It's good to see him returning to the earth as everything does. As we all do. Actually, it's not a matter of returning to the earth: we've never left. In fact, there is no we to do the leaving; is there?

Earth places Earth on Earth, watching Earth become Earth. This is a good thing to remember.

Remember.