From California to Louisiana
No more the mountains rising blue and gray,
nor oceans crashing near to shore on rocks.
Goodbye to moderate climes for now I’ll say
and pack up all my dreams in a moving box.
Migration destination: all is flat.
Some trees—the oaks—are all that rise up high,
and cypress grow, with bottoms swelling fat
in water; humid heat in air and sky.
The ocean’s near, yet far. It lacks a shore,
but rather wetlands give transition slow.
Alike my understanding local lore
the folks here tell, so much is left to know.
The strange may grow familiar, year by year.
Yet where is home? It’s neither there nor here.
Mark F. DeWitt is an ethnomusicologist, amateur musician, and emerging poet based in Oakland, California, although parts of him still linger in Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Ohio. His poems have appeared in The New Verse News and publications of the Litquake Foundation and the Society for Ethnomusicology. He is also author of an ethnography, Cajun and Zydeco Dance Music in Northern California: Modern Pleasures in a Postmodern World (University Press of Mississippi).
Yummy!
The whole wide world seems like home for those of us who like to roam. Whether by mountains or by sea, exploring gives us ecstasy.
Do you dream, Mark, of crawdads and frog legs? I do, and I’ve only heard about them.
Mark, what a lovely expression of today’s California dream–to move out! As a native Floridian firmly established in Southern California, I recognize your question of “where is home?” And my visits to Louisiana easily magnify your difficulties of “understanding local lore.” The contrasts drawn throughout your quatrains effectively develop the disoriented tone.
What a lovely poem! I identify with your wanderings. Well penned!
Beautiful poem! So much so deftly encapsulated in fourteen lines. Where is home? For nomads it’s there and here.
What a thought-provoking poem, Mark. Moving to a new home can be traumatic, but soon enough the pining for what was goes away.
Thanks for the read.
What a lovely and relatable sonnet, Mark. So many have packed up their California dreams into a moving box…or a U-Haul…and headed off for somewhere with lower taxes, lower housing prices, and a lower cost of living. Climate and culture shock, too, often await, and it can be a tough move, trying to feel at home again.