Where I’m From

 

I am from hemlock swamps and hayfields,

Where flakey gneiss holds the rain captive in its crevices

And breaks the mower blade as it passes over.

My dungaree jacket gets covered in grease

Because I steal Dad’s tools while he fixes the tractor.

Maybe that is why I will never learn how to fix it myself:

I am too busy being a tool-snitch to become a mechanic.

I run off altogether when Mom is in the vegetable garden

And only come back under the greatest duress:

I will never become a gardener either.

Instead I pick up special hay bales made just my size

To feed Fire, Blackberry, and Annabelle through the winter

And carry sap buckets that are only half full

So that we will have maple syrup on pancakes and oatmeal.

The sugar maple trees have barbed wire in their sides

And later I will learn about the ghosts that haunt these fields,

Ghosts of hundreds of animals who died horrible deaths.

There are other kinds of ghosts too, skeletons of the closet variety.

I know them by other names—Guinevere, Mr. Rochester, Henry the Eighth,

People who commit indiscretions and cruelties of the epic variety,

Storing away lies, lovers, and libels in like squirrels storing acorns.

One day, I will learn that I am from a long line of exuberant sinners

As well as from grass and rock and water.

There are saints too, of course—Arthur, Helen Burns, all the Janes,

Taking care of everyone while the world slides into chaos,

Like apple trees that keep growing sweet apples

Long after everyone has left and the orchard has turned to weeds.

I think you know already that saints’ lives aren’t usually very happy.

I learn to put peroxide and Band-aids on my cat-scratches

Because Roz, Julie, Wick, and I get into fights like most siblings do

And I get scolded so that I won’t become a serial killer.

It makes no sense to me because they are older and smarter and have claws.

To be a saint and be miserable, or not to be a saint and be happy?