Back in the Springs

After a lengthy absence, I have returned to the thriving metropolis and bustling hub of progressive culture that is Boiling Springs, North Carolina. It may be none of those things, but it is a good place to live for a little while, to call home from afar.

And after a lengthy hiatus, I am back to writing on this blog, after much serious thought given to the idea of scrapping it in favor of just writing occasionally on the Brog over at brosblogging.wordpress.com. I will try to devote adequate time and energy to make them both worth undertaking.

That being said, the last time I posted, I mentioned that I wanted to improve as a writer of poetry because I was, quite frankly, not very good. While that remains the case, I have worked a bit on my skills as they were, and have produced this piece, which I started writing on the porch of bunk one at Camp Weequahic in Pennsylvania:

The Mansion in the Yard
Amid the grove of pines in our front yard
stands a towering flowering magnolia,
capped by white blossoms -
the fingertips of gnarled limbs.

My father transplanted it there
at the center of the yard,
full-grown.
He dug the hole himself after watching me try
one too many times
to reach even the lowest limbs
of those great pines,
scraping my arms, legs, and belly
as I bear-hugged their trunks
and shimmied up.

On those occasions we have company,
they always complement the neat rows
of the great grove,
and then inquire about the magnolia,
why is it there where it doesn't quite fit and
couldn't it have gone outside the grove
instead of at its center?

Here my father shrugs
and winks at me.
Because he knows
I gave up shimmying
the day he planted that magnolia,
that it's the only tree I climb,
for its condescending limbs,
bent like soft bark elbows
as she stoops to hoist me
into her great canopy.

On her broad shoulders,
I can breathe
the air of the leaves.
Pressed against her breast,
I can be,
can safely watch the red roof of my house,
an annex to the mansion in the yard.