John Robinson
HOMEPLACE
This is the place of my father
where clapboard walls of the bedrooms
have collapsed over foundation stones,
where moss-covered slats
lie in a rot-drenched heap
near a tree bearing the notice: NO HUNTING.
When younger, I would
sift through dirt
or shift
configurations of boards.
I was taught history through remnants
of uncovered
onyx colored door-knobs,
glass buttons,
stoneware.
This is the place
where lives began,
years before our own,
where rains erode almost everything
as leaves are driven from the sky,
where a shadow circles above
reminding me,
one day all will be as driven leaves,
as if rain-worn earth were our last and only keep.
Bio: John Timothy Robinson is a traditional citizen and graduate of the Marshall University Creative Writing program in Huntington, West Virginia with a Regent’s Degree. He has an interest in Critical Theory of poetry and American Formalism. John is also a twelve-year educator for Mason County Schools in Mason County, WV. Past and forthcoming work; Kestrel, California Quarterly, Ship of Fools, Floyd County Moonshine, The South Carolina Review.
Wild Goose Poetry Review 