And this is where you will find me:
beside a good dog
who can sniff out the scent of bullfrogs hunched
between the soaked knees of Cypress trees;
where an old woman in her kitchen
can hear the soft swoop
of a cherrywood paddle before it slices
through tangles of swamp,
and where I am almost always
six years old,
this and
she says tonight my father is most likely crouched
in the break-down lane on US-11,
somewhere between
Watertown and Pamelia
fixing a flat for a forsaken mother
with a cream soda stain
on her last good blouse
and a shaving scar on her shin,
far from her house.
rising like ashes, we are fallen like rain
we cross the water, circumspect
of the crosses we etch
on wet Cypress trees
Ordinary Handsome 
This is incredible and visceral writing. ❤ ❤ I love these lines:
"rising like ashes, we are fallen like rain
we cross the water, circumspect
of the crosses we etch
on wet Cypress trees"
So moving, I just love the imagery that crosses into my mind's eye here.
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Thank you, Lucy. I’m so glad you liked this. 🙂
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I love, love, love this poem!! As Lucy noted, it’s incredible and visceral writing. The forsaken mother
with a cream soda stain on her last good blouse is the image that did me in.
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Thank you, Liz. These were small fragments I’ve kept in my notebook that needed a home. Sometimes they come together in unexpected ways. 🙂
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Those small fragments found a splendid home!
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🙂
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Just wow. Perfection.
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Wow, thank you, Kelly.
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The pleasure is mine, Steve. 🙂
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I love your writing, Steve!
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Thanks so much, Sheila. 🙂
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Beautiful as always, Steven. Such pure sensory images that tell whole stories. And the closing is sublime.
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Thank you, Diana. 🙂
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Reading much of you today is like catching up with an old friend. I’ve missed. Thank you for being accessible. 😉🙏🏽❤️
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Thank you for reading! I have, of course, been following all your most recent posts and was hesitant to comment because I wasn’t sure if I had anything worthwhile to say. I’ve been feeling a lot like that lately, not even certain about keeping this blog going. Self-doubt is a pretty common currency lately, and I know I’m not the only one feeling it. There’s so much misery going on in the world, that sometimes the good words are the only things that keep us afloat, and I think you’re all about the good words. You have such a huge passion in you, and the way you express it constantly amazes me. It’s an absolutely brilliant light. Whether you choose to share it in blog-form is entirely up to you, of course, but I hope you maintain that fierceness, because it really is something to witness. I’m going to keep doing my own thing, quietly, skipping my work across the current and seeing how it bounces. I try to be accessible, and these damned times have made me turn inward so hard that I’m sometimes lost to the words I’m trying so hard to find. You know my email address, so if you ever feel the need to scream at something, I can listen. Even the good stuff, I will gladly listen. 🙂
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Verse by you is a treat. I too was mostly moved by the stained blouse and the ending. I saw you mentioned they are snippets from your notebook — isn’t it amazing when these thoughts finally find their right place?
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Thanks so much for reading. Yes, it is amazing. 🙂
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I loved everything about this. Your writing always transports me, Steve–it never fails:-)
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Thank so much, Suzanne, that’s so kind of you to say. 🙂
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