Stagnant

I won't name the worst place I ever lived (it's in the US), but I will say that I spent 5 years and two weeks there and by the time I left, I was a changed person. I reached the lowest point of my life so far during that time, but I cannot say I am sorry I lived there. I learned valuable lessons that I carry with me to this day. I am scarred, but wiser. You know in that old Helen Reddy song, I Am Woman, when she sings, 'Yes, I am wise, but it's wisdom born of pain. Yes, I'll pay the price but look how much I've gained.' I feel like that about the place. Did my time, learned a lot, was grateful to escape, not going back.

There was much I did not like about the place--almost everything, in fact. It was not a landscape I found appealing (classified as high desert, there was a lot of dead looking stuff all the time, which was apt, I suppose). It was not a culture I found appealing, either. I was not the only one. Many people who came from elsewhere disliked it and left, as we did. That may be one reason why the place stayed stagnant. The local people were resentful of outsiders and, in fact, wanted to secede from the state and form a new one. Sometimes it was all quite funny, but mostly, it wasn't. People wanted to either keep things as they'd always been, whatever that means, or go back to the 'good old days.' Sound familiar? One guy who had lived in the area his whole life once told me he was proud to be ignorant and that they didn't 'need no people from the east coast coming here and telling us what to think.' I'd gone there from Alaska, but figured that, given his celebration of his own ignorance, it probably wouldn't be useful to tell him that I came there from the north. I also declined to say out loud what I was really thinking, which was that I never tell people WHAT to think, but I would suggest that he give thinking a try. He might discover that it's an activity he enjoys. Hope springs eternal.

There were gripes among the locals, though. There were stores everywhere, but there were not enough places to shop. This was a common whine which was related to another complaint--that people did not go there because the town isn't located on the main highway corridor. Once, I did lose the run of myself and, after the gazillionth time hearing this, I responded without thinking, 'That's not why people don't come here.'

Anyway, that's the background for this poem that I wrote when I was in this ugly place.

INVASIVE SPECIES

Brown.

The color

of a landscape

too long

neglected.

Dried up.

Parched.

Thirsty

for vision

new ideas

and people

who do not

look over 

their shoulders

at yesterday

but ahead

to tomorrow

and what is

possible.

Those with 

deep roots

endlessly repeat

their exclamations

of beauty and

their fierce attachment

to what has always been

and still is

only in their imaginations.

Those who 

have transplanted themselves

are not content

to be dried up

parched,

thirsty.

They search 

for water,

new ideas,

possibilities.

Who do they 

think they are?

There’ll be none

of that here.

Things must

remain

the same

as always.

But maybe with

more shopping.

this picture was taken today in our current home--half a world away from the ugly town in more ways than one!

It's Poetry Day here today, and I think, the last day of Poetry Month in the US, so enjoy a poem or two for the day that's in it! 😊

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