A poet I am not

Quite some time ago, I was asked by a co-worker if I ever wrote about my hometown. I hadn't really thought of it before. I suppose everything I write has some origins in my hometown, whether planned of subconsciously. Some root, or filament, connecting it to the place I have always lived. But, had I ever written specifically about it? No, I decided, I had not. So, I took pen to paper and tried to write about the place I was born and raised, where my daughter was born and raised, and now my granddaughter. It wasn't so easy. I scrambled to put something together that was meaningful, yet all I had achieved was a stack of notes, descriptions that came to mind, places, people, feelings. It wasn't at all a cheery perspective. I tried for two years to assemble these thoughts into a story, with no success. It wasn't working. So, I thought, why not use those fragments in a poem? Now, I'm no poet. I haven't written any poetry for almost thirty years. But, it seemed the words felt more at home in verse than in paragraph, and so, this, for whatever it's worth was the final result. Being unschooled in poetry, its form and structure and such, I can't say if it is done properly, poorly, or if I should burn the whole thing and eat the ashes, but this is what I have.

The Crumbling

(I have to share via a link to Dropbox due to formatting difficulty. It's safe...don't be scared!)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rxoslmb7t5or4n3/The%20Crumbling.pdf?dl=0