BACK IN THE TOWN WHERE I WAS BORN

The dam is still the same, the water
transforming—brown to tan to cream
to white as it pours down—the mist
still sprinkling the shore. The railroad
trestle has been torn down, the fishing
now done from a concrete clearing:
sturdy wooden benches, a steel barrel
with a sign: "rough fish." The heavy foliage
is gone: no hacking through branches,
no narrow trails, the whole landscape
reconstructed—hills and valleys
leveled out. My childhood imaginings—
fortresses, monster caves—have been cut
away. The smell of rotting carp remains.
Sitting on this bench—a wooden canopy
shading me—watching two boys fish,
writing, I know: these simplifications,
this comfort, is what most people want.
The bench, with its shade, its armrest,
makes even a poem seem more possible.
In the darkening calm, I stretch and cast.

Part of my creative dissertation from the University of North Dakota, this particular piece has undergone a few changes since that time, mainly in terms of form, having moved gradually from free verse to a somewhat loose but more definite four-stress meter. The swaying between wanting comfort, convenience, and/or familiarity and wanting change and needing to be challenged—in our lives, in our acts of creation—is at the heart of this poem.