For Wild Friday at Poets United. Inspired by James Wright (1927-1980) and his poetry collection: Shall We Gather At The River.A sense of place is a good thing.
A grounding thing.
A sense of time and place means
You remember things that
Have touched you deeply.
Deeply enough to lay
The groundwork for a poem.
He was rooted in time and place
Like no one I ever read.
Out of the way places.
Lonely places.
Daybreak beginning to fall on Idaho.
A discontinued railroad station
In Fargo, North Dakota.
The oldest whorehouse
In Wheeling, West Virginia.
(No mention if they were the oldest whores.)
He understood the poet's mission
was to take what has stirred
(or maybe shaken) you,
And pay it forward.
Poignant and plain spoken, he came
from a time and a place
where some things still made sense.
Some still remember.
