They call me flatlander here in this high Sierra town.
They call me flatlander from LA, from la-la land
where the lunatic fringe holds center stage.
They call LA “down below” in this frontier town
of crusted hardtack ranchers and farmers.
They say, “Down below where flatlanders stole our water
to build mega-mansions and cartoon houses
in the so-called city of angels.”
They ask, “What happened to the damned angels?”
They call me flatlander from down below.
They say it with scorn,
tempered a bit with shame.
They don’t like it, but they need our fat wads of cash,
pieces of silver exchanged
for this valley town’s pastures, once fertile and green,
for its rivers and streams that once overflowed banks,
for its lakes that glistened with sun-cut diamonds,
for its towering cottonwoods, now shriveled and dead,
that line only the river banks of memory.
Dust storms bedevil the town today,
rising from empty lakebeds and dried up rivers,
veiling legendary blue skies with yellow-brown gauze.
The water flows south in concrete aqueducts
built by big-city rustlers made rich by stolen water.
They say they fought the flatlanders with posses of armed men.
They say they blew up construction sites,
sabotaged equipment, vandalized vehicles,
sabotaged equipment, vandalized vehicles,
harassed work crews, destroyed makeshift lodgings.
Still, the water flows south as flatlanders head north
flooding this town by the thousands,
searching for back-country quiet,
seeking a respite from lives down below
that churn and surge in a city afloat on troubled waters.
When we open our wallets,
they are grateful, cordial, and smile their thanks,
but their guarded eyes shoot blanks.
They call me flatlander in this dried-out town.
Susan Matthewson
Absolutely amazing! You are such a wonderful poet, Susan. I feel how "they" must feel. I see what "they" see. And the inevitability of the flatlanders' flight away from the churning troubled waters of their stolen paradise brings the story full circle. It's all so sad, so poignant for everyone involved. No one wins in this scenario - no one except the reader of this fine poem.
ReplyDeleteAnother splendid poem filled with bull's-eye imagery and razor-sharp insight. Liz is correct, Susan -- you are quite a wonderful poet.
ReplyDeleteI kept thinking of the movie Chinatown. As powerful as that movie was with pictorial images, yours was with words. I want to know more about this poem and how it was birthed. Ditto Liz and Susie
ReplyDeleteThanks all for you lovely comments. This poem is the result of a homework assignment in the Gotham Writers Workshop poetry class that I'm taking. We were to write a poem either about being a stranger in a town where everyone else was a native or about having stayed in a town and lived your life there when you should have left. The teacher gives wonderful in-class writing exercises and homework assignments. Another assignment we had was to take any book, open it to any page, take the first question we come to on that page and answer the question in a poem. It was very interesting to see what people came up with.
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