This poem was written for Read Write Poem Prompt #99: Setting the Scene. I wrote this in the persona of a young man growing up in the late 1950′s/early 1960′s. I tried my best to follow the prompt, so I’d like some comments no only on the quality of the work, but how well it followed the idea of conveying a scene without telling a story. And oh yeah — enjoy.

-Nicole

——————————————————————-

Men are admitted into Heaven not because
they have curbed & govern’d their Passions or
have No Passions, but because they have
Cultivated their Understandings.
- William Blake

I want you to picture something. A Wednesday afternoon in September,
1960. In your mind, it would be colored
in black and white and looking like
a desolate, inside-out Leave It To Beaver special. You always seem
to paint gray there when you think of this. But I remember it
in color. How the Library of Congress stands over me
in a cream and stone, column and stair missive
from our country’s modern ancients, erupting from the beige sidewalks
and carpet grass below. How I stare upward, wondering
if the frozen sky of blue noon can be cut by
the sharp right-angle shoulders of this roof.
Continue reading →