Our environments shape us, or perhaps you could say, we transform to be similar to the ideas that surround us. If you do nothing but watch CNN, you will grow to be liberal. If you only watch FOX you will grow to be conservative. There are city values and country values, traditionalists and trend setters.

My poem is about a man who has grown comfortable living in his house. He knows it, understands it, and doesn’t want to leave it.

The poem was inspired by this the image I created. Part of the image is a photograph of an old house I took this summer.

A House Is A Lifetime

Stay in one room
and you meld
with the colors,
a chameleon
walking on plaid,
or the celery green kitchen
over-painted stark white.

Even the cupboards,
that seem so familiar,
are known by the cook,
the color of sugar,
the smell of pink roast.

And a table
covered with oil cloth,
set with white plates
and royal blue banding,
a cup of black coffee
made on the stove,

boiled way too long,
until he was feeble
and driven away,
a room that was foreign
and wrong.