It’s a big question. In one sense, we come from whatever specific dot on the map we call home. But that dot represents more than a physical place. It's also a people, a tribe, a way of life summed up as “just how we do things around here." That place is often so familiar we can't see it until we've stepped away from it. In this poem, looking back from a distance of many miles and decades, I've tried to capture an essence of my Midwestern cultural home. As I wrote it, I came to realize how much of that place I still carry with me.
From Cottonwood and Dust
(after Jeannine Oullette)
for Judy and Larry who are from there, too
I’m from wide streets with
diagonal parking and one stoplight,
and dust—green dust coughed from the lungs of
the alfalfa mill across the tracks,
chalk dust slapped from erasers at recess,
black dust from farms that blew away and
settled into stories our parents told,
gray dust on hard dirt roads where
teenagers raced pick-up trucks too fast,
but not fast enough to get away.
I’m from the Platte River
stretching its long cool arm pointing west,
Sandhill cranes,
silhouettes of grain silos along Highway 30,
tumbleweeds and funnel clouds, cattails,
the soft applause of wind in cottonwood leaves,
big sky.
I’m from solid oak church pews,
Methodist parsonages with
wallpaper and drapes chosen by committee,
Jell-O salads glazed with Miracle Whip
and laid out like crown jewels
on folding tables in church basements,
from do unto others, Saturday night pin curls,
white gloves, store-bought Easter hats,
keeping the peace.
I’m from pot roasts overcooked in the electric skillet
during Sunday service, farmers’ tans,
god is great god is good and we thank him for our food,
metal roller skates with keys,
the slap of screen doors after supper,
olly olly oxen free until dark,
canned green beans,
don’t be a stranger, and unlocked front doors,
from we don’t mean to bother,
saving aluminum foil and string,
work before play, sack lunches with orange pop,
spaghetti sauce from a can of tomato soup.
I’m from the 100th Meridian,
that invisible line bisecting town and state,
and from where we stood on
chocolate or vanilla,
Chevy or Ford,
Protestant or Catholic,
baby dolls or Lincoln logs,
Massey Ferguson or John Deere,
Housewife or Old Maid,
teacher or nurse,
righteous or wrong,
good or bad.
I’m from the things we didn’t talk about,
the questions we didn’t ask,
the lines we didn’t cross.
I’m from places you’ve never been—
Clay Center, Cozad, Lincoln,
and from people with soft, old-fashioned names
that tasted like comfort food—Floy, Neva, Elza, Pearl.
Lurton, Shirley, Mamie, Roy.
Garnett, Nye.
I’m from people who wanted more
and left home to find it, and people who stayed put
to keep what they had,
from bootstraps and clean slates,
shoestrings, false starts, getting on with it, making do,
this too shall pass.
I’m from the cobalt blue glass in Grandma Bond’s kitchen,
the one that made milk taste special,
the bullet-proof corset she laced her soft body into every morning,
from the Upper Room Bible readings that made me sleepy,
the dose of Hadacol Tonic she took before bed,
not knowing it was 80-proof,
the iron law of her kitchen—one towel for dishes,
one for pots and pans,
from the chickens she hatched, fed, killed, plucked and fried,
the ordinary extravagance of fresh-picked yellow beans in cream,
and doilies fine as spider webs, chokecherry jelly,
prize gladiolas in careful rows,
the sacrament of prairie sunset—a singular pause,
dishtowel in hand, to take in that piece of Cheyenne County sky
framed by her picture window.
And I’m from her bless your heart, welcome as
a single piece of Godiva chocolate on a hotel pillow, or
one essential prayer.
(May 2025)About this poem
This poem was inspired by a prompt from Jeannine Oullette’s Substack, Writing in the Dark with Jeannine Oullette. Its form is modeled after her poem, “From Chickweed & Ash.” The writing took me into reflections about how I've been shaped by growing up in rural Nebraska, and by ancestors, known and unknown, whose stories have been lost. I wonder what family and cultural legacies have been passed down our generational line, and what has has been kept, what left behind.
And yes, that is the same glass. It now lives on the top shelf in my kitchen.
Wow, Cindy. Deep resonance in this.
Thank you, Theresa.