This found poem was inspired by the FB post of a friend. Most of the words are his and used with his permission. This is his original post:
I have not spent a lot of time traveling the West, but I’ve spent some. I’ve spent time in quiet, empty places, some of which I’ve loved and some of which I’ve regretted. I don’t think about any of those experiences often, but I am tonight. I’m watching Nomadland and it’s beautiful and deliberate and plodding and inviting and alienating. It’s got me feeling a sort of aching nostalgia for a life and places that aren’t really mine and that I really don’t want to be mine. Things I’ve seen and done but things that aren’t really who I think of as me. If that’s not the mark of a successful movie, I don’t know what could possibly be.
- Ryan Skinnell in a FB post from Monday, March 1, 2021
I have not spent a lot
time traveling
The West, in my memory,
a flat place of peaks & canyons,
a topography of scaled places, where
I’ve spent some,
I spend some,
I will spend some
time in quiet,
empty places,
some of which
I’ve loved and regretted.
I don’t think about
those experiences
often, but I am tonight—
beautiful, deliberate, plodding,
inviting, alienating—
aching nostalgia,
that empty hermit crab shell,
for a life of places
that aren’t really mine
and that I don’t want:
places as things, as me
and not as me.