about Charlottesville

I'm really loving writing poems about places lately - places new to me and places so familiar and old that I feel I belong to them.

This one is for Charlottesville, a place that will always be dear to me for the things it gave me and for what it forced me to discover and for who I became after a few years of calling it home.
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For Charlottesville, Virginia

I gave myself to a city once,

and learned there that the giving

is more like a surrender, the process

of discovering your own name.

Sometimes against the backdrop

of blue mountain ridges and white columns

I wept from a lie that I was alone,

and sometimes I wept knowing,

in sudden bursts of miracles, that I

was loved. 

Once or so I knew

what it was to return them.

Sometimes in my city I’d walk for miles,

letting everything be new for me,

sometimes I’d follow, sometimes I’d

remember how the streets could sound

in the summer, wearing shades

of quiet and peace.

Sometimes I’d get lost, and sometimes

things looked so familiar that my bones

would fill my skin, tight enough to feel

I could not become more of this.

Leaving my city was a moment

like when you’ve been laughing,

so filled up with love,

and suddenly stumble into

earnest silence,

like a few seconds into slow dancing,

when you realize your connection

of fingertips, and his nose

brushing your forehead, how

your cheek gives up and falls

and he moves you so carefully

that you uncover every importance

inside you, and in a beautiful way
take yourself very seriously.