I left my old life completely behind while my daughter and son-in-law drove me to my new home in Ohio. I have been here at Kendal, the senior facility at Oberlin college for a day and a half. It is too new to talk about except to say I believe it will be fine and more than fine. Right now I am still stunned and exhausted from the journey and meeting newness at every moment.

I will just leave a poem to mark traversing the Northeast to the Midwest by car.

5/28/18

Screen Savior

Lying with my head on my mother’s lap

across the bench seat in our ’52 Chevy

tree tops and telephone wires

rush by

sweet smells of summer tucking me in

 

Today I left my hometown

semi reclining in the back seat of a Subaru

this long drive from Woodstock

upstate NY mountain greens and RVs rush by

 

Sitting up I see

Memorial Day golfers, hikers, kayakers,

trucks, motorcycles, American flags

morning beers and tents in the Oxbow campsite

orange life vests swimming in the Allegheny

 

Clouds pull away like taffy

into mashed potatoes and cotton balls

milky mares tails

of a hot summer day

 

My old home leaves me in miles and hours

the screen I am using hasn’t changed

only the projections on it from

childhood to widowhood

 

Always north and west

the same eyes see

Damascus, Bath, Cuba go by

the Seneca-Iroquois Nation museum and casino

Jamestown, into Eerie, PA

 

Rolling on to the flat lands of OH

through a haze of barbecue smoke

the Great Lake glimmers at Cleveland’s edge

we drive on through to Oberlin

my new home town

 

In the hotel at night I close my eyes

the world still rushing by

the screen never alters

it must be untouched Love itself

the only home that remains still