i want to say…

i’ve been neglecting my wee space here for the last few months while trying desperately to sort out trans-atlantic relocation logistics. it has never been this complicated… but i have also accumulated more (physical and metaphorical) baggage over the years. it occurred to me — when talking to people who have not lived in any other country other than the one they grew up in — that i must seem rather crazy to have lived, relocated, and made various cities home for a while… perhaps one only begin to have such fears and worries … or to anticipate such feelings with age and ‘wisdom’! often times, i envy those who are happy where they are… happy that they know where they’d rather be.

i want to say that while i had not previously imagine living in the suburban Midwest, nor bearing her excruciatingly cold winters, or tolerating her lack of architectural splendour that distinctively characterizes many historical cities of Europe or her serious lack of dramatic hills and skyscapes like those of bonny Scotland, i did find myself growing fonder of many aspects of life in Minnesota… and the NICE people who made my stay quite memorable.

“I Want to Say”

I Want to Say
Before I’m lost to time and the midwest
I want to say I was here
I loved the half light all winter
I want you to know before I leave
that I liked the towns living along the back of the Mississippi
I loved the large heron filling the sky
the slender white egret at the edge of the shore
I came to love my life here
fell in love with the color grey
the unending turn of seasons
Let me say
I loved Hill City
the bench in front of the tavern
the small hill to the lake
I loved the morning frost on the bell in New Albin
and the money I made as a poet
I was thankful for the white night
the sky of so many wet summers
Before I leave this whole world of my friends
I want to tell you I loved the rain on large store windows
had more croissants here in Minneapolis
than the French do in Lyons
I read the poets of the midwest
their hard crusts of bread dark goat cheese
and was nourished not hungry where they lived
I ate at the edges of state lines and boundaries
Know I loved the cold the tap of bare branches against windows
know there will not be your peonies in spring
wherever I go
the electric petunias
and your orange zinnias

by Natalie Goldberg
from Top of My Lungs. © The Overlook Press.