I’m from bike spokes
and shy pokes
and night jokes and slim,
from skinned knees
and shelled peas
and B Bs and apples.
I worked hard,
cooked with lard,
read the Word,
watched the birds and sighed;
Why can’t I fly?
I learned to sing
from the hymn book’s notes;
I studied springs
to find the tadpoles’ holes.
I’m from Elkton and Fairview,
from Princeton and Cob,
from Cadiz, minding my biz,
from Gracey to Lacy school,
O yes, and Hopkinsville.
I’ve sat on a stump ’til the ants
made me move,
carved a penguin from a busted broom handle
with only a Barlow knife.
I watched my neighbors grow up
and lie down, raise up from their beds
spin stories we thought were dead,
turn right round again
and die moaning in pain.
The stories I was told
Are better than gold
because that’s where I’m from.
George Fillingham is an Army brat who now lives in Hopkinsville where he writes poetry and is at work on a novel. His youngest son was killed several years ago now, but his life haunts George to this day. His eldest boy is a successful computer tech with two kids of his own in Western Missouri. George has been Santa since 1998 and is privileged to be Santa for some of the boys and girls of Hopkinsville.
