This is the web page I designed for MECC’s Governor’s School Creative Writing course. I had an interesting time in the class and wrote many things, this just being a small sample. I have two poems and a monologue on this page. The first poem is like a template of the poem “Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyons that each of us had to write at the beginning of the course. The second poem is my nature poem. We went outside and observed for a while to inspire us to write a poem and I came up with “Wind”. We had a choice to write either a monologue or a poem about typical stereotypes, and I choose ‘redneck’ because I know quite a few people you would associate with this word (although I am not one myself) and I had a lot of fun working on it, and it became the final addition to this page. I hope you enjoy my page!
I am from mud pies,
From Gatorade and grass seed.
I am from the swing in my front yard,
Peaceful, comfortable,
Air cooling my bare feet as I swung.
I am from the dogwood tree,
Its leaves changing from summer to fall,
Budding white flowers in the springtime.
I am from hidden Easter eggs and pale skin.
From Edith and Betty and Hattie Sue.
I am from juicy gossip and crazy fishing stories,
From “No running in the house!” to “Give Grandma some sugar.”
I am from the blessing before Sunday supper,
In my grandparents’ old-fashioned kitchen,
Praying for all the sick bunny rabbits.
I’m from Guest River and Pole Bridge,
Newly made apple butter and freshly cut green beans.
From the calluses on my father’s hands,
And soft sweet hands of my mother.
I am from the unbelievable stories of my relatives,
Passed on from generation to generation.
Times I was never there,
But lessons and memories I will never forget.
Sitting on a rock wall covered in fallen leaves,
Fallen branches, sticks, moss, dirt, life, death.
Below it is a nature-made staircase of stone,
With traces of wind.
Underneath is a pool of diverse leaves;
Some dead, brown, decayed with time,
Stiff as a board, ready to crumble at the touch,
Spots all over, like bleach on old blue jeans.
Some newly fallen, still having green color,
Smooth, lying with veins protruding upwards,
Edges barely torn, barely tattered,
No reason to be resting there.
Farther away there is anther rock force field,
Standing together like a wall with fallen leaves,
Fallen branches, sticks, moss, dirt, life, death,
With traces of wind.
Rows of stone with leaves in the heart,
Like a leaf road, always changing,
Rearranging with the wind’s authority,
Never questioning it.
Two rock strands on either sides as guardrails,
Sticks lying across them as bridges.
A tree, reaching out to heaven,
Stands watching over the leaf highway,
Almost like a graveyard of her children.
Dropping clinging leaves onto the street,
Where they lay waiting, waiting, waiting,
For wind to scurry them, or bury them.
When, at last, a cool, rushing breeze appears,
All the leaves spring to life,
Rushing out of their restrained doom,
Racing to a safer place to rest,
Using all their will to escape their eventual entombment.
Wind is the traffic light of the leaf highway,
The tree only getting a chance to move,
To bend out of its awkward positioning when wind blows.
This bringing freedom and comfort,
But also blowing in a silent fear.
A gust comes and the tree’s mighty limbs can stretch,
Many of her children falling to perish in the avenue below.
Bringing chances of escape to those, and chances of everlasting confinement.
The tree situated straight and proud, unshaken,
But others leaning, ready to fall,
To naïve to see anything coming,
Too fearful to do anything about it,
And will one day join their fallen friends,
Making connections across rock walls,
Being covered by fallen leaves,
Fallen branches, sticks, moss, dirt, life, death,
Decaying, decomposing, Disfiguring,
With traces of wind.
As I look down, my eyes searching the leaf road,
The leaves are small and crinkled, elderly, rusted, dead.
All but one that hasn’t yet been swallowed up,
Still full of color, still full of hope.
While a bee roughly, raggedly hums his song,
Birds chirp calling one another,
Unaware if a lost, lonely, desperate leaf’s fate,
All determined by a single, sudden touch of wind.
"You look at me and say I'm dumb, but if you knew all the knowledge this-right-here brain holds, you'd never call me stupid again. I know the truth about cow-tippin'. I can say "Git-R-Done" in six different languages. I can guzzle twenty Budweiser before you can say "Hell yeah!", then shoot 'em all from tree branches using only three shot gun shells. I could tell you the complete history of NASCAR (including the entire driver's and crew's middle names and how many burn-outs there have been at each track) since my birth and I can tell you what every flavor Skoal tastes like, some mixed. I can fit a whole can in my mouth too, don't make me show you. I can sing every word to any Hank Williams Jr. song and use a turkey call like it's natural to me. I could give you ten reasons why the Confederate flag should replace the American flag and fifty ways "the South's gonna do it again". I can get my truck (the one that I fooled you into thinkin' don't work) to do ninety-five goin' up Buck Mountain. I can completely comprehend what that old man means when he says "Ric-eh-tec-tac now. Dang". And I can shoot off firecrackers like nothin' you ever saw. Take it from me, bein' a redneck has its advantages."