Walking through
The dust-coated city
With cracked road,
The only road
With paved lanes,
But no lines
Down its center,
I salute the eternal
Blue sky so I
Might shade
My brow.
The dirt, once
Brown or mahogany
In texture, now
A bitter a lifeless
Color, cracks
Underfoot as if
You were walking
Upon brittle glass.
No trees line
Any avenue or
Lane; Only
Old power lines
Strewn on brittle,
Rotted posts,
Too baked to make
Any humming.
I open the gate door,
Rust fused to lock,
Paint incinerated
From no particular
Lack of upkeep,
And step inside
My small, patchy yard
With the laundry line
Held up with one
Wooden post and
A rusted thresher.
I step onto the foyer,
My mother greeting me,
Asking me about my
Afternoon, washing
Clothes in the washing
Machine I was not
Aware we had,
I seek refuge in
The blinding shade.
Inside the family is quiet,
Barely audible over
My voiceless replies.
No one moves,
The shades are drawn,
Linoleum sheets nailed
To wooden floors,
Which smell of hot
Water and lye, shift lightly
Underfoot.
I sit in a reclined chair
Staring at ornate rugs
Pinned to chalky walls
For decoration
As I take a deep
Breath,
Feeling the heat
From my body
Clash
With the heat
Of the cooking sky.
Composed 06/17/2012
Author’s note: It dropped to -20 F today in my city. The long summer days seem so distant now. I’m more of a warm weather creature, so the summer time has fond memories for me. I tried to capture the environment of my village as best I could with this poem. I try not to romanticize places I’ve been. I do try to convey the fondness I have for places, despite their imperfections. A difficult skill to master, indeed.
Also, soum (сум) literally translates to arrow. It’s a relic of an old classification system for villages from back in the day. The word just kind of stuck, I suppose.
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