SNGF: Where I'm From

Randy at Genea-Musings suggestion yesterday for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun was to create a poem based on the Where I'm From template, created from the poem by poet, George Ella Lyon.  An excellent suggestion.

You can find her original poem, along with audio of her reading it, on her official site, GeorgeEllaLyon.com (Her poem can be found many other places across the web, as it has become quite popular.)

I shared my version back in 2009.
Here it is again

Where I’m From
by John Newmark ©2009
based on Copy-Change Template by George Ella Lyon

I am from books --
from hostess ding dongs and lemonade stands.
I am from a three bedroom, finished basement, with a backyard fence our crazy dog was able to jump over.
I am from the dandelions I refused to accept were weeds,
and the tree that was planted in Israel in my name when I turned thirteen.

I’m from Sunday Dinners and talking politics at the table --
Sam and Rose --
fiftieth wedding anniversaries --
and watching Must See TV every Thursday night with my cousins at Grandma’s.

I’m from ‘pick up your clothes’ to ‘make your bed.’
I’m from Christmas Trees and Bar Mitzvah lessons.
I’m from St. Louis, Transylvania, Poland, and Texas --
Chopped liver, corned beef, bagels and gefilte fish.

I’m from a grandfather, who in the 1930s jumped a train with his friends and rode to California
to a grandmother, age 7, on a beebox in her father’s Texas apiary -
she stands in the center
of a photo at my parents’ house
inside a box next to other boxes
filled with books,
pictures,
high school mementos,
my grandfather’s Cavalry sword from the 1920s, Star of David on the hilt,
and the WWII diary of a great-uncle who never returned.