Revised Revisited

An old postcard of my home - When we owned it, the trees had grown up all around it, so it wasn't visible from the road.

Today is Poetry Friday, and our hostess is Catherine at Reading to the Core.  She's sharing a poem planned for the start of school....yipes! Already??

I missed last Friday's poetry, though I did write some.  I read about "Where I'm From" poetry introduced by George Ella Lyon, and tried one.
I also later found this form online: http://freeology.com/extras/whereimfrom2.html.  It would be good for getting started with students.

Though some have seen my original there version on FB, I have revisited and revised it.  At one early point I had accidentally taken out the "lilacs" that I wanted in there, so they are back. Then my brother read it and mentioned "Brown Rim Cookies".  No one else in the world that I knew ever made them, or had heard of them.  So I've included the cookies in the poem and a recipe at the end.  I became an expert at tucking the edges of the linen towel inside a glass, dipping it in water, and applying just the right amount of pressure to the ball of dough so that the edges wouldn't burn.  There were a few "Burned Rim Cookies" before I got it right!
Yesterday, the 26th, would have been my mother's birthday.  So let's just say it is in honor of her.  For she is really "where I'm from" in many, many ways - even to her choice of my hard-working dad, Alex!

Not my actual bike -
Mine didn't have a headlight, but it was probably used when I got it.  My brother got a red bike the same day.

Where I'm From

I am from

family baseball
on summer Sunday afternoons,

because before I was from anywhere
Alex joined the Coast Guard instead

of the Red Sox farm team.
I am from

backyard football
and driveway basketball
until snow flies. 

As the eldest of four,
I am from
watching my three siblings
when adults are busy;
But still 

I am from the fun of
bare feet and blueberries
marbles and mud,
jump ropes and jacks.
I am from lilacs and ledges, 

chokecherry hideaways;
from butterflies and

grasshoppers and pine pitch

stickiness on fingertips.
I am from
making stick boats to float

down the driveway after a rain,
carving roads under the cedar trees 

for my Tonka truck and

ducking spiderwebs.
I am from 

the terrors of gathering

eggs from feisty hens and

avoiding killer roosters.
I am from

repaired
porcelain horses,
used furniture, antiques

and unlimited pre-loved old books:

“Honeybunch, Just a Little Girl” and
“A Child’s Garden of Verse”;
And I am from under my own
‘Land of Counterpane’

 reading and hoping

no one will notice
I’m not yet outside playing
under the apple trees and old elm.
I am from choir and white gloves,

and praying in school each morning;

I am from Bonnie Brae 

and picking Mrs. Foye's 

favorite apples in the front yard

and rubbing dirt off carrots and radishes from 

Mom’s vegetable garden in the backyard.
I am from

sewing machines and fabric
and making my own dresses;
I am from
“Gone With the Wind”,
and pressing down brown rim cookies.
I am from working at summer camp with
kids where I first learn I will be from
hundreds of children teaching me.
I am from new roots
with a husband
and a farm halfway across the country,
away from family and old friends.
I am from
new friends,
real horses,
real fences to mend,
and from my own two children
who mold me into
a mom.
I am not always from
“I know how to do that.”
But I am from
“I want to learn how to do that.”
I am from guns and roses
and motorcycles.
And I am from
a mother and father who know
that small things are big
and big things are small,
and a fall
is naught
at all.
I am from salt air, 


seagulls,
 and polliwogs;


and the freedom to roam

on a blue Schwinn I named Daisy.


I am from hearing an old foghorn


call us for supper.


And I’m from


coming home

 again.

By Donna JT Smith, July 22, 2018

A foghorn like ours.

BROWN RIM COOKIES
1 c. shortening 1 tsp. salt 2 eggs, well beaten 1 tsp. vanilla 2/3 c. sugar 2 1/2 c. sifted flour Combine shortening, salt and vanilla. Add sugar and cream well. Add eggs. Beat thoroughly. Add flour. Mix well. Drop by teaspoonfuls and flatten with water glass (damp cloth over bottom). Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Note:  Mrs. Foye was an elderly woman who would sit on our porch and ask for specific apples from our trees.  Mom was a registered nurse, and she and Dad opened our house up for a while to be a nursing home at Bonnie Brae.  We had patients in 5 of our bedrooms, and we slept in the "summer" rooms over the barn and summer kitchen.