Where I'm From

This poem was inspired by George Ella Lyon's "Where I'm From"

Where I’m From

I am from double boilers, from Hershey’s chocolate and homemade bread.

I am from cheap apartments that allowed kids, crowded, chaotic, and cramped.

I am from the prickly pear cactus, and Lodge Pole Pine

I am from Christmas Eve presents and hammer toes, from Elizabeth and Melvin and Grandma Boice).

I am from stubbornness and hot tempers.

From “money doesn’t grow on trees” and “when God closes a door he will always open a window”.

I am from rosaries and holy water, and grandma’s boarding school memories.

I'm from Idaho- Irish peasants and laying railroad track; bread pudding and red eyed gravy.

From Katie Mulligan Boice who was 18 when she bought her 1905 Indian Motorcycle right off the line, the woman my grandfather never let drive, my mother who graduated college in her forties and started teaching in one room schools.

I am from black and white pictures most long gone, berry pickers, and pump organs – music that plays now in my memories.