i would walk past
the house
where hemingway wrote
many of his first short stories
i saw it intimately in every season
and also the house
where he was born
up from the high school
in oak park
some oldster remembered him
even the streets in certain places held
his echoes and even scenes
he wished he could have
annihilated
with the bravado
he encased himself in
because oak park is like this
so trim and prim
with the wide lawns he derided
where anything
drunk or stray didn't belong
god had no hard feelings
when the place was created
oak park has no hard feelings
thus hemingway became the
storyteller and the braggart
the lying hero and the wanderer
drunk and killer of others and self
just to get away from oak park
now ernest is dead
and oak park is just the same
the immortally serene location
where the wisconsin glacier stopped
the shore of ancient lake chicago
crown of the continental divide
___
from recollection
HB SOCAL
2014
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